The Koine Bible

My son, keep my words, and hide my commandments with yourself.

Keep my commandments and you will live, and my words as the pupils of your eyes.

Bind them around your fingers, and write them on the tablet of your heart.

Say wisdom is your sister, and make prudence known to yourself as a familiar friend

so that she may keep you from a foreign and evil woman, if she should cast you down with words that are for favor

For from the window of her house, peering out into the streets,

seeing among the foolish children a young man lacking understanding

passing by the corner in the ways of her houses

and speaking in the darkness of evening, when there may be night silence and gloominess

And a woman meets him, having the appearance of a prostitute, who makes young men’s hearts fly out

She is fluttering and wanton, and her feet do not rest in her house.

For at one time she is outside wandering, and at another time in the streets she lies in wait at every corner

Then, taking hold of him, she kissed him, and with shameless face she spoke to him

A peace offering is with me today; I am paying my vows.

Therefore I came out to meet you, longing for your face; I have found you.

I have spread my bed with cords, and I have strewn it with tapestries from Egypt

I have sprinkled my bed with saffron, and my house with cinnamon.

Come, and let us enjoy love until morning; come, and let us roll ourselves in love.

For my husband is not in the house; but he has gone on a long journey.

He has taken a bag of money in his hand; after many days he will return to his house.

And with much speech she led him astray; with the snares from her lips she thrust him away.

And he followed her, being deceived, and as an ox is led to slaughter, and as a dog to bonds

or as a deer struck by an arrow in the liver hastens, and as a bird to a trap, not knowing that it runs about for life

And now, therefore, my son, listen to me and pay attention to the words of my mouth.

Do not let your heart turn aside into her ways.

For she has wounded many and has cast down, and countless are those whom she has slain

Her house is the ways of Hades, going down to the chambers of death.