Proverbs 7

²Obey God's commandments and you will truly live! Guard His teaching as carefully as you guard your own eyes.

³Tie wisdom on your fingers so you always have it with you — write it on your heart so it is always inside you.

⁴Think of wisdom as your closest friend — your sister! Call understanding your most trusted companion.

⁵Wisdom and understanding will protect you from people who use sweet, flattering words to lead you the wrong way.

⁶One day, the wise teacher looked out through the window of their house...

⁷And in the street below, the teacher noticed a young person — someone who had not yet learned wisdom and was wandering without good direction.

⁸The young person walked through the streets and ended up heading toward a place they should not have gone.

⁹It was twilight — the evening — and the night was becoming dark and full of shadows.

¹⁰And then someone met him — someone who looked one way on the outside but had very different, hidden plans on the inside.

¹¹This person was loud, restless, and never stayed settled — always out looking for the next thing.

¹²She was always in the streets, always at the corners, always watching and waiting for the next person to trap.

¹³She rushed toward him boldly and with great confidence started talking to him as if she had no shame at all.

¹⁴She said, 'I have just come from doing religious things — so I must be fine! Come, everything is good.' She used religious words to make wrong things sound right.

¹⁵'I was looking for you,' she said. 'I came out just to find you!' She made him feel special — like he was the most important person in the world.

¹⁶She described all sorts of beautiful, luxurious things — making the wrong place sound like the most wonderful place imaginable.

¹⁷She described wonderful smells and all the pleasures she had prepared — making everything sound irresistible.

¹⁸She said, 'Come! Let's just enjoy ourselves all night — forget about tomorrow!' She made wrong choices sound like they were only fun and had no cost.

¹⁹She said, 'No one will know. No one is watching. No one is home.' She wanted him to think he could do wrong without being seen.

²⁰She kept convincing him: 'It will be fine — we have time, no one will be back for ages.' She made every excuse to push aside wisdom.

²¹In the end, all her sweet talk worked. He gave in. He stopped listening to wisdom and followed where she led.

²²He walked right into disaster — like an ox that does not know it is walking toward slaughter, or like someone walking into a trap without any idea.

²³Like a little bird flying happily into a net — not knowing it is flying toward the end of its freedom — he went, and disaster came.

²⁴So listen, children! Pay attention to what I am telling you — these words are important!

²⁵Do not let your heart start drifting toward wrong paths. Do not take even one step down the road that leads to disaster.

²⁶This wrong path has already hurt many, many people — even very strong people who thought they could handle it.

²⁷That wrong path leads all the way down to destruction. But God's path leads all the way up to life!