Warnings Against Adultery

²⁰My son, keep your father's commandment,

and forsake not your mother's teaching.

²¹Bind them on your heart always;

tie them around your neck.

²²When you walk, they4 will lead you;

when you lie down, they will watch over you;

and when you awake, they will talk with you.

²³For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light,

and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life,

²⁴to preserve you from the evil woman,5

from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.6

²⁵Do not desire her beauty in your heart,

and do not let her capture you with her eyelashes;

²⁶for the price of a prostitute is only a loaf of bread,7

but a married woman8 hunts down a precious life.

²⁷Can a man carry fire next to his chest

and his clothes not be burned?

²⁸Or can one walk on hot coals

and his feet not be scorched?

²⁹So is he who goes in to his neighbor's wife;

none who touches her will go unpunished.

Expand Chapter