Admonition to marriage. Warning against unchastity
(Leviticus 20:10-21; 1 Corinthians 5:1-8)
1
My sonne, hearken vnto my wisedome, and incline thine eare vnto my knowledge.
2
That thou maiest regarde counsell, and thy lippes obserue knowledge.
3
For the lippes of a strange woman drop as an honie combe, and her mouth is more soft then oyle.
4
But the end of her is bitter as wormewood, and sharpe as a two edged sworde.
5
Her feete goe downe to death, and her steps take holde on hell.
6
She weigheth not the way of life: her paths are moueable: thou canst not knowe them.
7
Heare yee me nowe therefore, O children, and depart not from the wordes of my mouth.
8
Keepe thy way farre from her, and come not neere the doore of her house,
9
Least thou giue thine honor vnto others, and thy yeeres to the cruell:
10
Least the stranger should be silled with thy strength, and thy labours bee in the house of a stranger,
11
And thou mourne at thine end, (when thou hast consumed thy flesh and thy bodie)
12
And say, How haue I hated instruction, and mine heart despised correction!
13
And haue not obeied the voyce of them that taught mee, nor enclined mine eare to them that instructed me!
14
I was almost brought into all euil in ye mids of the Congregation and assemblie.
Married life
15
Drinke the water of thy cisterne, and of the riuers out of the middes of thine owne well.
16
Let thy fountaines flow foorth, and the riuers of waters in the streetes.
17
But let them bee thine, euen thine onely, and not the strangers with thee.
18
Let thy fountaine be blessed, and reioyce with the wife of thy youth.
19
Let her be as the louing hinde and pleasant roe: let her brests satisfie thee at all times, and delite in her loue continually.
20
For why shouldest thou delite, my sonne, in a strange woman, or embrace the bosome of a stranger?
21
For the waies of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his pathes.
22
His owne iniquities shall take the wicked himselfe, and he shall be holden with the cordes of his owne sinne.
23
Hee shall die for fault of instruction, and shall goe astray through his great follie.