Proverbs 5
23 verses
Chapter 5 shifts from general wisdom to a specific and urgent danger: the seduction of the adulteress and the grave consequences of sexual unfaithfulness and covenant-breaking. The father addresses his son with passionate intensity, begging him to listen carefully, warning that the strange woman's lips drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil, yet her end is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a double-edged sword, creating a stark contrast between enticing appearance and devastating reality. The theological framework is thoroughly covenantal: the adulteress is not merely a poor romantic choice but a betrayer of covenant vows, her house leads to death and her paths to Sheol, and sexual faithfulness is framed as obedience to God's created order and protective design for human flourishing. The chapter's turning point shifts from warning to exhortation: the son should instead drink from his own cistern, enjoy the fountain of his own wife, and find satisfaction in her love, presenting marital fidelity not as reluctant duty but as joyful devotion and pleasure, thereby sanctifying eros within covenant bounds. The passage anticipates Jesus's teaching on adultery and John's language of abiding in Christ, offering a vision of wisdom that encompasses not just intellectual and moral life but also the body and intimate relationships as spheres where God's order and blessing operate. As the first of the temptress passages, chapter 5 establishes that covenant-breaking—whether against God or spouse—is not a minor lapse but a fundamental rejection of Wisdom's way.
VERSES IN THIS CHAPTER
1
My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
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2
That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
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3
For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
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4
But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
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5
Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
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6
Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
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7
Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
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8
Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
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9
Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
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10
Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
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11
And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
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12
And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
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13
And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
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14
I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
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15
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
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16
Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
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17
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
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18
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
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19
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
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20
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
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21
For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings.
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22
His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
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23
He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
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