Friday 21st October 2022

The False Attractions of Adultery

7My child, keep my words
   and store up my commandments with you;
² keep my commandments and live,
   keep my teachings as the apple of your eye;
³ bind them on your fingers,
   write them on the tablet of your heart.
⁴ Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister’,
   and call insight your intimate friend,
⁵ that they may keep you from the loose^* woman,
   from the adulteress with her smooth words.

⁶ For at the window of my house
   I looked out through my lattice,
⁷ and I saw among the simple ones,
   I observed among the youths,
   a young man without sense,
⁸ passing along the street near her corner,
   taking the road to her house
⁹ in the twilight, in the evening,
   at the time of night and darkness.

¹⁰ Then a woman comes towards him,
   decked out like a prostitute, wily of heart.^*
11 She is loud and wayward;
   her feet do not stay at home;
¹² now in the street, now in the squares,
   and at every corner she lies in wait.
¹³ She seizes him and kisses him,
   and with impudent face she says to him:
¹⁴ ‘I had to offer sacrifices,
   and today I have paid my vows;
¹⁵ so now I have come out to meet you,
   to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!
¹⁶ I have decked my couch with coverings,
   coloured spreads of Egyptian linen;
¹⁷ I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
   aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸ Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;
   let us delight ourselves with love.
¹⁹ For my husband is not at home;
   he has gone on a long journey.
²⁰ He took a bag of money with him;
   he will not come home until full moon.’

²¹ With much seductive speech she persuades him;
   with her smooth talk she compels him.
²² Right away he follows her,
   and goes like an ox to the slaughter,
or bounds like a stag towards the trap^*
23   until an arrow pierces its entrails.
He is like a bird rushing into a snare,
   not knowing that it will cost him his life.

²⁴ And now, my children, listen to me,
   and be attentive to the words of my mouth.
²⁵ Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways;
   do not stray into her paths.
²⁶ for many are those she has laid low,
   and numerous are her victims.
²⁷ Her house is the way to Sheol,
   going down to the chambers of death.

NRSV