Proverbs On Discipline

Accept discipline for you to be corrected in your evil ways

Do not reject or ignore what you are being told to refrain or abhor.

Your foolishness will never bear fruit to your favor; but rather the opposite.

“Early Warning Before It Is Too Late”

My child, be attentive to my wisdom, give ear to my understanding, to heed [wise] designs and let your lips guard wisdom.
5:1-2
For the lips of a forbidden woman drip honey, and her palate is smoother than oil,
5:3
but her end is as bitter wormwood, as sharp as a double-edged sword.
:4
Then you will say, “How could I have hated discipline, and my heart spurned rebuke?
:12
For a pittance [of enjoyment] I was into everything evil, in the presence of congregation and assembly!”
:14
For a man’s ways are opposite Hashem’s eyes, and He weighs all his courses.
:21
He will die for refusing discipline, and for abundant foolishness with which he strayed.
:23

1 My son, hearken to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding,
2 to watch [your] thoughts, and your lips shall guard knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman drip honey, and her palate is smoother than oil.
4 But her end is as bitter as wormwood, as sharp as a two-edged sword.
5 Her feet descend to death; her steps come near the grave.
6 Lest you weigh the path of life, her paths have wandered off and you shall not know.
7 And now, children, hearken to me and do not turn away from the sayings of my mouth.
8 Distance your way from her and do not draw near to the entrance of her house,
9 lest you give others your glory, and your years to a cruel one;
10 lest strangers be sated with your strength and your labors be in the house of an alien.
11 And you shall moan when your end comes, when your flesh and your body are consumed,
12 and you will say, “How [is it that] I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof;
13 and I did not hearken to my instructors, and to my teachers I did not incline my ear?
14 I was almost in all evil, in the midst of the congregation and the assembly.”
15 Drink water from your own cistern and running water from your own spring.
16 May your springs spread out rivulets of water in the squares.
17 You alone shall have them, and strangers shall have nothing with you.
18 Your fountain shall be blessed, and you shall rejoice with the wife of your youth;
19 a lovely hind and a graceful mountain goat, her breasts will satisfy you at all times; you shall always be intoxicated with her love.
20 Now why should you, my son, be intoxicated by a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of an alien one?
21 For man’s ways are opposite the Lord’s eyes, and He weighs all his paths.
22 His iniquities shall trap the wicked man, and he shall be hanged with the ropes of his sin.
23 He shall die without discipline, and he shall err with his exceeding foolishness.