Avoiding Immorality
Leviticus 20:10–21; 1 Corinthians 5:1–8
1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,+ 2that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.+ 3Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,+ 4in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.+ 5Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol.+ 6She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.+ 7So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.+ 8Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,+ 9lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;+ 10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.+ 11At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,+ 12and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!+ 13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.+ 14I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”+ 15Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.+ 16Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?+ 17Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers. 18May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:+ 19A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.+ 20Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?+ 21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.+ 22The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.+ 23He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.+