My son, pay attention to my wisdom; Lend your ear to my understanding, That you may preserve discretion, And your lips may keep knowledge. For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey, And her mouth is smoother than oil; But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, Sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, Lest you ponder her path of life – Her ways are unstable; You do not know them. Therefore hear me now, my children, And do not depart from the words of my mouth. Remove your way far from her, And do not go near the door of her house, Lest you give your honor to others, And your years to the cruel one; Lest aliens be filled with your wealth, And your labors go to the house of a foreigner; And you mourn at last, When your flesh and your body are consumed, And say: “How I have hated instruction, And my heart despised correction! I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me! I was on the verge of total ruin, In the midst of the assembly and congregation.” Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well.
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| Life is full of many temptations! photo by flickr user, Aleasy, used under the creative commons license check out more photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aleasybbreezy/ |
Such wisdom from Solomon! He knows all too well that sin and the temptation to sin is actually pleasing to us. He knows that when we say "yes" to sin, it's immediate effect is not destruction but pleasure. And how easy it would be to lie to ourselves that we would be the exception- that, even though a certain sin has led others away from God, it will not lead us away! And yet, if we persist in this, than one day we shall see we have been gradually taken away from the Lord, and this by our own doing!
Oh, that we would have eyes that would see our true end! Those things seem okay for us and yet, in our hearts we know they are wrong- those things should be avoided by us as we would avoid any clear danger. We hold on tightly if we are by a tall ledge without a fence. We stay away from packs of stray, wild animals and cross the street to avoid their bites yet why would we willingly wander into the pathway of sin, knowing that it will lead us away from our True life?
O Lord, help me to love You and despise sin. Let me not be like the fool who thinks only of the moment and realizes not that a moment's pleasure is not worth decades of regret. It would be better, O my soul, to avoid that which leads me away from the Lord than to risk hardening my heart against Him for the pleasures of sin. For how do I know, O soul, if at the end of things I would want to repent? Keep me this day, O Lord, from sin. Amen.
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