1 Wisdom {chokhmot: personified insight} has raised her house; she has carved out her seven pillars {amud: structural support}.
2 She has slaughtered her beasts and mixed her wine {maskhah: blending festive wine}; she has arranged her table {shulchanah: prepared place for communal eating}.
3 She has sent out her maidens, and she calls from the highest points {gappei: high points} of the city {karet: town}.
4 “Whoever is simple {peti: naive, inexperienced}, step inside,” she states to the one lacking discernment {chasar-lev: without insight}.
5 Come, partake of my bread {lachami: personal sustenance} and drink the wine {masachti: carefully blended} I have mixed.
6 Leave behind the simple ways {petaʿim: morally inexperienced} and live, and walk straight in the way of insight {binah: discernment}.
7 Whoever corrects a scoffer {letz: contemptuous mocker} acquires disgrace for himself, and whoever reproves the wicked {rasha: morally corrupt person} gets a stain.
8 Do not rebuke a mocker {letz: one who derides}, or he will hate you; reprove a wise person {chakham: receptive listener}, and he will love you.
9 Give instruction to the wise person, and he will become still wiser; instruct the righteous {tsaddiq: just} one, and he will add to his learning {lekach: discernment}.
10 The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the LORD {YHWH, Foundation of Wisdom}, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding {bina: discernment for living}.
11 For by me {bi: instrumental agency} your days will multiply, and years of life {chayyim: vitality, flourishing} will be added to you.
12 If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; but if you mock {latza: mock with derision}, you alone will bear {tissa: shoulder the burden}.
13 A woman {eshet: personified folly} of folly is boisterous; simple {petayut: naivete, gullibility} and she knows nothing.
14 She sits at the entry {petach: threshold} of her house, on a seat in the heights of the town {qaret: town}.
15 She calls out to passers-by {ovrei-derekh: those crossing the way}, to those who make their paths level {yashar: make level}.
16 Whoever is simple {peti: inexperienced one}, turn aside here! And she says to him who lacks heart {lev: understanding mind}.
17 Stolen water {genuvim: illicitly acquired} is sweet, and bread eaten in secret {setarim: concealed provision} is pleasant.
18 Yet he does not know that the departed spirits {rephaim: disembodied dead} are present, and that her guests dwell in the depths of Sheol {sheol: realm of death}.