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New American Bible 2002 11 11 IntraText - Text |
Chapter 7
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My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands.
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Keep my commands and live, my teaching as the apple of your eye;
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Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.
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Say to Wisdom, "You are my sister!" call Understanding, "Friend!"
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That they may keep you from another's wife, from the adulteress with her smooth words.
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For at the window of my house, through my lattice I looked out -
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And I saw among the simple ones, I observed among the young men, a youth with no sense,
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Going along the street near the corner, then walking in the direction of her house -
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In the twilight, at dusk of day, at the time of the dark of night.
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And lo! the woman comes to meet him, robed like a harlot, with secret designs -
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She is fickle and unruly, in her home her feet cannot rest;
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Now she is in the streets, now in the open squares, and at every corner she lurks in ambush -
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When she seizes him, she kisses him, and with an impudent look says to him:
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1 "I owed peace offerings, and today I have fulfilled my vows;
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So I came out to meet you, to look for you, and I have found you!
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With coverlets I have spread my couch, with brocaded cloths of Egyptian linen;
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I have sprinkled my bed with myrrh, with aloes, and with cinnamon.
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"Come, let us drink our fill of love, until morning, let us feast on love!
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For my husband is not at home, he has gone on a long journey;
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A bag of money he took with him, not till the full moon will he return home."
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She wins him over by her repeated urging, with her smooth lips she leads him astray;
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He follows her stupidly, like an ox that is led to slaughter; Like a stag that minces toward the net,
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till an arrow pierces its liver; Like a bird that rushes into a snare, unaware that its life is at stake.
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So now, O children, listen to me, be attentive to the words of my mouth!
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Let not your heart turn to her ways, go not astray in her paths;
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For many are those she has struck down dead, numerous, those she has slain.
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Her house is made up of ways to the nether world, leading down into the chambers of death.