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My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments by thee.
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Keep my commandments and my law, even as the apple of thine eye, and thou shalt live.
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Bind them upon thy fingers, write them in the table of thine heart.
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Say unto wisdom: Thou art my sister, and call understanding thy kinswoman:
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That she may keep thee from the strange woman, and from the harlot which giveth sweet words.
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For out of the window of my house I looked thorow the trellis,
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and beheld the simple people: and among other young folks I spied one young fool
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going over the streets, by the corner in the way toward the harlots house
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in the twilight of the evening, when it began now to be night and dark.
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And behold, there met him a woman in an harlot's apparel
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(a deceitful, wanton and an unsteadfast woman: whose feet could not abide in the house,
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now is she without, now in the streets, and lurketh in every corner.)
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She caught the young man, kissed him, and was not ashamed, saying:
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I had a vow to pay, and this day I perform it.
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Therefore came I forth to meet thee, that I might seek thy face, and so I have found thee.
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I have decked my bed with coverings and clothes of Egypt.
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My bed have I made to smell of Myrrh, Aloes, and Cinnamon.
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Come, let us lie together, and take our pleasure till it be day light.
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For the goodman is not at home, he is gone far off.
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He hath taken the bag of money with him: who can tell when he cometh home?
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Thus with many sweet words she overcome him, and with her flattering lips she wanne him.
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Immediately he followeth her, as it were an ox to the slaughter (and like as it were to the stocks, where fools are punished)
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so long till she hath wounded his liver with her dart: like as if a bird hasted to the snare, not knowing that the peril of his life lieth thereupon.
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Hear me now therefore, O my son, and mark the words of my mouth.
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Let not thine heart wander in her ways, and be not thou deceived in her paths.
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For many one hath she wounded and cast down, yea many a strong man hath she slain.
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Her houses is the way to hell, where men go down into the chambers of death.