Hearken unto me now therefore, O ye children, and attend to the words of my mouth.
Hearken now and attend closely to wise instruction about vice and its results, for the call to children and the young is a closing appeal to listen and take warning in time before the danger that follows. Young men especially must escape the snares lying thick about their feet, though the warnings are meant to reach the hearts of both men and women and guard them against the sins condemned. The chapter gives a vivid and truthful account going straight to the mark, with nothing elsewhere to equal it, of the strange woman in the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart who still lives and lies in wait at every corner, and of the young man void of understanding who under cover of darkness went the way to her house and yielded to her, going after her as an ox to the slaughter and as a bird hasting to the snare for his life. The warning is spoken plainly and freely without coarseness about vital matters so that sins of this nature, fatal to the health of soul and body, appear exceeding sinful in their true colors, with vice made in no way attractive and its dreadful consequences set forth feelingly and truthfully as many wounded and slain and the house going down to hell and the chambers of death.
The enticement warns against being drawn from innocence and the path of virtue by an immoral woman and enchantress through hidden snares and enticing but poisonous temptations, where what first seems pleasant follows a downward path that leads to harm, ruin and destruction, with a bed that leads to death for those who do not turn, like the seductive dangers presented by city life. Heeding reproof and instruction is choosing wisdom and the path of life, while rejecting them leaves one on the destructive path of folly unto spiritual disease and death. Being tempted is no sin and feeling temptation as grievous is no weakness; the sin is listening to the voice of the charmer until the heart goes out after what is forbidden. Christ as Counselor knows these dangers and how to escape them, and knows how to turn even harmful things into blessings.
The passage shows the moral dangers surrounding inexperienced youth, the tempestuous force of passion, and the great and sacred functions of the body, along a perilous path where a single false step commits a girl to a life of shame selling herself as a prostitute. Therefore fathers and mothers must openly teach sons and daughters these forces and laws of physical life for the health of body and soul instead of leaving them in dense ignorance through false modesty and silence that lets them receive first knowledge surreptitiously in vulgar and corrupting forms in great cities. The same call to attend is applied to morality that depends on political power for enforcement as a disguised harlot whose path leads to death, with war, robbery and murder hidden in her chambers and revenge, hatred, envy and division following her.
Hearken now and attend closely to wise instruction about vice and its results, for the call to children and the young is a closing appeal to listen and take warning in time before the danger that follows. Young men especially must escape the snares lying thick about their feet, though the warnings are meant to reach the hearts of both men and women and guard them against the sins condemned. The chapter gives a vivid and truthful account going straight to the mark, with nothing elsewhere to equal it, of the strange woman in the attire of a harlot and subtle of heart who still lives and lies in wait at every corner, and of the young man void of understanding who under cover of darkness went the way to her house and yielded to her, going after her as an ox to the slaughter and as a bird hasting to the snare for his life. The warning is spoken plainly and freely without coarseness about vital matters so that sins of this nature, fatal to the health of soul and body, appear exceeding sinful in their true colors, with vice made in no way attractive and its dreadful consequences set forth feelingly and truthfully as many wounded and slain and the house going down to hell and the chambers of death.
The enticement warns against being drawn from innocence and the path of virtue by an immoral woman and enchantress through hidden snares and enticing but poisonous temptations, where what first seems pleasant follows a downward path that leads to harm, ruin and destruction, with a bed that leads to death for those who do not turn, like the seductive dangers presented by city life. Heeding reproof and instruction is choosing wisdom and the path of life, while rejecting them leaves one on the destructive path of folly unto spiritual disease and death. Being tempted is no sin and feeling temptation as grievous is no weakness; the sin is listening to the voice of the charmer until the heart goes out after what is forbidden. Christ as Counselor knows these dangers and how to escape them, and knows how to turn even harmful things into blessings.
The passage shows the moral dangers surrounding inexperienced youth, the tempestuous force of passion, and the great and sacred functions of the body, along a perilous path where a single false step commits a girl to a life of shame selling herself as a prostitute. Therefore fathers and mothers must openly teach sons and daughters these forces and laws of physical life for the health of body and soul instead of leaving them in dense ignorance through false modesty and silence that lets them receive first knowledge surreptitiously in vulgar and corrupting forms in great cities. The same call to attend is applied to morality that depends on political power for enforcement as a disguised harlot whose path leads to death, with war, robbery and murder hidden in her chambers and revenge, hatred, envy and division following her.