Revised Standard Version RSV
New International Version NIV
16 Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
16
Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
17 Let them be for yourself alone, and not for strangers with you.
17
Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
18
May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 a lovely hind, a graceful doe. Let her affection fill you at all times with delight, be infatuated always with her love.
19
A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.
20 Why should you be infatuated, my son, with a loose woman and embrace the bosom of an adventuress?
20
Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?
21 For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he watches all his paths.
21
For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all your paths.
22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, and he is caught in the toils of his sin.
22
The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast.
23 He dies for lack of discipline, and because of his great folly he is lost.
23
For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.