5
A warning about adultery
1 My son, listen carefully to some more wise things that I will tell you.
Listen well to what I am going to teach you.
2 If you do that, you will be able to choose wisely what to do,
and you will know the right things to say [MTY].
3 What an immoral woman says to you may be as sweet as honey,
and sound smoother than olive oil feels on your skin,
4 but the result of being with her will be bitter like gall
and injure you as badly, like being cut with a sharp two-edged sword.
5 If you go where she goes [MTY], you will go down to where the dead people are.
Her steps will lead you straight to the grave.
6 She is not concerned about the roads that lead to a long life.
She walks down a crooked path,
and she does not realize that she is on the wrong road.
7 So now, my sons, listen to me.
◄Never turn aside from/always remember► [LIT] what I am about to tell you.
8 Run away from immoral women!
Do not go near the doors of their houses!
9 If you enter the home of one of them, you will lose your ◄self-respect/good reputation►
and that woman's husband will not act mercifully toward you;
he will kill you and take everything that you have acquired during your life!
10 Foreigners will take your money,
and all the good things that you have worked for will ◄end up in their hands/become their possessions►.
11 And when you about to die,
you will groan with severe pain
because diseases that you have gotten from being immoral are destroying your body.
12 Then you will say, “I hated it when people tried to correct me.
I despised people when they reproved/rebuked me.
13 I did not heed what my teachers said!
I paid no attention to those who tried to teach me something about my behavior.
14 Now I am almost ruined,
and I will be disgraced in public gatherings.”
15 Like a man is refreshed by drinking water from his own well [MET],
enjoy having sex [EUP] only with your own wife.
16 Like you would not waste good water by pouring it into the street,
you should not have sex with other women. [MET, EUP]
17 Enjoy having sex only with your wife;
do not have sex with other women.
18 Let your wife be a source of great pleasure to you.
◄Be happy/ Enjoy sex► with the woman whom you married when you were both young.
19 She is as pretty and graceful as a young female deer.
Allow her breasts to always satisfy you.
Allow her lovemaking to excite you.
20 My son, do not be [RHQ] captivated/charmed by an immoral woman!
Do not fondle the breasts of another man's wife!
21 I say that because Yahweh sees clearly everything that we do;
he knows where we are going on the roads that we walk on.
22 Evil men's sinful desires hold them fast;
their sins are like ropes that bind them.
23 Evil men will die because they are unable to say “No” to their desires;
they will ◄go astray/be lost► because of the foolish things that they do.
Note: The Old Testament in this translation is still being worked on, and is in draft form. Updates will be posted at eBible.org/t4t/.