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¹⁵Avoid it, pass not by it;

Turn from it, and pass on.

¹⁶For they sleep not, except they have done evil;

And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

¹⁷For they eat the bread of wickedness,

And drink the wine of violence. ¹⁸But the path of the righteous is as the light of dawn,

That shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

¹⁹The way of the wicked is as darkness;

They know not at what they stumble.

 

²⁰My son, attend to my words;

Incline thine ear unto my sayings.

²¹Let them not depart from thine eyes;

Keep them in the midst of thy heart.

²²For they are life unto those that find them,

And health to all their flesh.

²³Above all that thou guardest keep thy heart;

For out of it are the issues of life.

²⁴Put away from thee a froward mouth,

And perverse lips put far from thee.

²⁵Let thine eyes look right on,

And let thine eyelids look straight before thee.

²⁶Make plain the path of thy feet,

And let all thy ways be established.

²⁷Turn not to the right hand nor to the left;

Remove thy foot from evil.

5 My son, attend unto my wisdom;

Incline thine ear to my understanding;

²That thou mayest preserve discretion,

And that thy lips may keep knowledge.

³For the lips of a strange woman drop honey,

And her mouth is smoother than oil;

⁴But her end is bitter as wormwood,

Sharp as a two-edged sword.

⁵Her feet go down to death;

Her steps take hold on the nether-world;

⁶Lest she should walk the even path of life,

Her ways wander, but she knoweth it not.

 

⁷Now therefore, O ye children, hearken unto me,

And depart not from the words of my mouth.

⁸Remove thy way far from her,

And come not nigh the door of her house;

⁹Lest thou give thy vigour unto others,

And thy years unto the cruel;

¹⁰Lest strangers be filled with thy strength,

And thy labours be in the house of an alien;

¹¹And thou moan, when thine end cometh,

When thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

¹²And say: 'How have I hated instruction,

And my heart despised reproof;

¹³Neither have I hearkened to the voice of my teachers,

Nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

¹⁴I was well nigh in all evil In the midst of the congregation and assembly.'

 

¹⁵Drink waters out of thine own cistern,

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