Proverbs 5:1-14
1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her moutha is smoother than oil:
4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth;b and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Quicksands! Keep Off!
It is a matter for great thankfulness that the Bible, which is God's book rather than man's, deals so strongly and wisely with one great evil, which has manifested itself in every age and in every state of society. It speaks boldly and plainly; and all who will meditate on its teaching with a prayerful heart, will be saved from many a painful snare. If we fall it will only be due to our having refused to heed the voice that speaks to us from paragraphs like these.
The one great caution that we must all observe is in the control of our thoughts. The soul must never lie open to the tide of suggestive thoughts that break along its beach. As of old the watchman kept the gate of the medieval city so soon as darkness fell, so must the purity of God keep watch and ward at eye-gate, ear-gate, and touch-gate, lest some emissary of evil gain entrance and betray the citadel. Let Christ be the custodian of thy soul, whether thou be man or woman, old or young, and let Him impart to thee His own divine and human purity.