¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
¹⁶Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
¹⁷ Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
¹⁸Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

¹⁹a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated^[a] always in her love.
²⁰Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?^[b]
21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he ponders^[c] all his paths.
²²The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
²³ He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.

English Standard Version (ESV)