Study Desk

My sonne, attend vnto my wisedome, and bowe thine eare to my vnderstanding.

That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keepe knowledge.

For the lips of a strange woman drop as an hony combe, and her mouth is smoother then oyle.

But her end is bitter as wormewood, sharpe as a two edged sword.

Her feete goe downe to death: her steps take hold on hell.

Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her wayes are moueable, that thou canst not know them.

Heare me now therefore, O yee children: & depart not from the words of my mouth.

Remoue thy way farre from her, and come not nie the doore of her house:

Lest thou giue thine honour vnto others, and thy yeeres vnto the cruell:

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth, and thy labors be in the house of a stranger,

And thou mourne at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

And say, How haue I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproofe?

And haue not obeyed the voyce of my teachers, nor inclined mine eare to them that instructed me?

I was almost in all euill, in the midst of the congregation & assembly.

Drinke waters out of thine owne cisterne, and running waters out of thine owne well.

Let thy fountaines bee dispersed abroad, and riuers of waters in the streets.

Let them be onely thine owne, and not strangers with thee.

Let thy fountaine be blessed: and reioyce with the wife of thy youth.

Let her bee as the louing Hinde and pleasant Roe, let her breasts satisfie thee at all times, and be thou rauisht alwayes with her loue.

And why wilt thou, my sonne, be rauisht with a strange woman, and imbrace the bosome of a stranger?

For the wayes of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings.

His owne iniquities shall take the wicked himselfe, and he shall be holden with the coards of his sinnes.

He shall die without instruction, and in the greatnesse of his folly he shal goe astray.