World English Bible
- My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my understanding,
- that you may maintain discretion, that your lips may preserve knowledge.
- For the lips of an adulteress drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil,
- but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword.
- Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to Sheol.
- She gives no thought to the way of life. Her ways are crooked, and she doesn’t know it.
- Now therefore, my sons, listen to me. Don’t depart from the words of my mouth.
- Remove your way far from her. Don’t come near the door of her house,
- lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel one;
- lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich another man’s house.
- You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed,
- and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof.
- I haven’t obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor turned my ear to those who instructed me!
- I have come to the brink of utter ruin, among the gathered assembly.”
- Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
- Should your springs overflow in the streets, streams of water in the public squares?
- Let them be for yourself alone, not for strangers with you.
- Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
- A loving doe and a graceful deer— let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be captivated always with her love.
- For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?
- For the ways of man are before the LORD’s eyes. He examines all his paths.
- The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare him. The cords of his sin hold him firmly.
- He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.
Proverbs 5 begins with the ear and the lips. The son must turn his ear toward wisdom so that his lips may preserve knowledge. Immediately, however, another pair of lips appears—lips dripping with honey and smoother than oil. The chapter is therefore not merely about sexual temptation; it is about rival words seeking entry into the heart. Before adultery becomes an act, it becomes a story we believe: This will satisfy me. No one will know. Nothing lasting will be lost.
The Hebrew expression translated “adulteress” is ’ishah zarah, literally “the strange” or “forbidden woman.” It need not mean a foreigner by ethnicity. She is “strange” because she stands outside the covenant bond. Yet the chapter does not permit the man to blame her. His own evil deeds become cords that bind him. Sin supplies its own rope, and repeated choices braid it.
Notice the geography of temptation: a mouth, a path, a door, a house, then Sheol. Wisdom says, “Don’t come near the door.” Mature faith does not ask how close it may stand to ruin without falling in. It changes roads. In biblical thought, holiness often has a geography: Joseph flees the room; Israel leaves Egypt; Jesus tells the tempter to depart. Sometimes the most spiritual act is to refuse an address, delete a number, or leave before desire begins negotiating.
The second half offers more than prohibition. It speaks of cisterns, wells, springs, and streams. In ancient Israel’s dry landscape, a household cistern was painstakingly cut into rock, plastered, guarded, and cherished. Water was life held in trust. Marriage is pictured in the same way—not as grim containment, but as a protected source of delight, fruitfulness, and shared life.
A striking Hebrew wordplay deepens this. The verb shagah can mean to be intoxicated, captivated, or led astray. The man is told to be captivated by his wife’s love, but warned against being captivated elsewhere; the same root returns when the fool “goes astray.” We cannot live uncaptured. The question is not whether love will master us, but which love will.
This challenges a thin view of holiness. God does not merely command us to suppress desire. He calls desire home. Faithfulness is not the absence of passion, but passion taught to keep covenant. As the Reformers often emphasized, marriage is not a lesser spiritual state; it is one of God’s ordinary schools of self-giving love.
The chapter ends beneath the Lord’s gaze. This is not only surveillance but truth: God sees the full path while temptation shows us only its honeyed entrance. In Christ, the One who knows every path also meets the repentant on the road home, breaking cords we could not loosen ourselves.
Suggested cross-references: Genesis 39:7–12; Malachi 2:14–16; Matthew 5:27–30; 1 Corinthians 6:12–20; Hebrews 13:4.
Suggested hymn: “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” especially its honest confession, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.”
Prayer:
Lord of covenant love, teach my ears to recognize the voice beneath
every temptation. Give me wisdom to avoid the door, courage to flee the
path, and grace to rejoice in what You have faithfully given. Bring my
wandering desires home, and captivate my heart with holy love. Amen.