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Dhammapada · narration sample

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The Bible · 633 of 1189

Proverbs 5

1.My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding: 2. That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

3.For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: 4. But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword. 5. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell. 6. Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them. 7. Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth. 8. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house: 9. Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel: 10. Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger; 11. And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed, 12. And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof; 13. And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me! 14. I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

15.Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. 16. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17. Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee. 18. Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love. 20. And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? 21. For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

22.His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. 23. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

Asked of Guide

Why does the father warn so fiercely against the 'strange woman'?

The father portrays the strange woman as seductive language and fleeting pleasure that lead to ruin: her lips are like “honeycomb,” her end is “bitter as wormwood,” and her steps “take hold on hell.” He frames the danger concretely—honour, wealth, years, and ultimately life itself are lost if one follows her ways, which are “moveable” so you cannot trust them.

His remedy is insistently domestic and positive: “Drink waters out of thine own cistern” and “rejoice with the wife of thy youth,” celebrating faithful marriage as the proper channel for desire and blessing. Proverbs repeats this advice elsewhere, especially Proverbs 31, which likewise prizes steadfast household virtue and the rewards of faithful living.

Guide is the guide inside the Gnosis app, where every book on these shelves is free to read. Guide is the part you pay for — your guide has read all of them, and answers about the passage you’re actually on. Ask your guide your own question.