Wormwood - In Eastern medicine this herb, the absinthium of Greek and Latin botanists, was looked upon as poisonous rather than medicinal. Compare Revelation 8:11.

Bitter as wormwood - כלענה Kelanah, like the detestable herb wormwood, or something analogous to it: something as excessive in its bitterness, as honey is in its sweetness.

But her end is bitter as wormwood,.... Which is opposed to the honeycomb her lips are said to drop; so that, as Juvenal says (g), "plus aloes quam mellis habet": the end which she brings persons to, or the issue of complying with her, is bitterness; such as loss of credit, substance, and health, remorse of conscience, and fear of death, corporeal and eternal; see Ecclesiastes 7:26;
sharp as a twoedged sword; which cuts every way; as committing sin with an harlot hurts both soul and body; and the reflection upon it is very cutting and distressing, and destroys all comfort and happiness. This is the reverse of her soothing and softening speech, which is as oil. Such also will be the sad case of the worshippers of the beast, or whore of Rome; who will gnaw their tongues for pain, and be killed with the twoedged sword that proceedeth out of the mouth of Christ, Revelation 16:10.
(g) Satyr. 6. v. 180. "Lingua dicta dulcia dabis, corde amara facilis", Plauti Truculentus, Acts. 1. Sc. 1. v. 77. Cistellaria, Acts. 1. Sc. 1. v. 70, 71, 72.

her end--literally, "her future," in sense of reward, what follows (compare Psalm 37:37; Psalm 73:17). Its nature is evinced by the use of figures, opposite those of Proverbs 5:3. The physical and moral suffering of the deluded profligate are notoriously terrible.

But - The effect of that to which she entices men, is destruction.