9. Lest you give your honor to others and your years to those without mercy,
10. Lest strangers [and false teachings] take their fill of your strength and wealth and your labors go to the house of an alien [from God]–
11. And you groan and mourn when your end comes, when your flesh and body are consumed,
12. And you say, How I hated instruction and discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
13. I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor submitted and consented to those who instructed me.
14. [The extent and boldness of] my sin involved almost all evil [in the estimation] of the congregation and the community.
15. Drink waters out of your own cistern [of a pure marriage relationship], and fresh running waters out of your own well.
16. Should your offspring be dispersed abroad as water brooks in the streets?
17. [Confine yourself to your own wife] let your children be for you alone, and not the children of strangers with you.
18. Let your fountain [of human life] be blessed [with the rewards of fidelity], and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant doe [tender, gentle, attractive]–let her bosom satisfy you at all times, and always be transported with delight in her love.
20. Why should you, my son, be infatuated with a loose woman, embrace the bosom of an outsider, and go astray?
21. For the ways of man are directly before the eyes of the Lord, and He [Who would have us live soberly, chastely, and godly] carefully weighs all man's goings. [II Chron. 16:9; Job 31:4; 34:21; Prov. 15:3; Jer. 16:17; Hos. 7:2; Heb. 4:13.]