Proverbs

Chapter 5

Avoiding Immorality

Proverbs 5 warns a son against the seductive speech of the forbidden woman by exposing the bitterness, shame, poverty, and death that follow adultery. It then urges joyful faithfulness within marriage and closes by reminding the reader that every path lies open before the LORD, who lets the undisciplined be trapped by their own sin.

As the fifth chapter of Proverbs, this passage develops the book's repeated contrast between wisdom and illicit desire. It frames sexual fidelity as a matter of covenant, self-government, and reverence before God, showing that private lust is never morally isolated from final accountability.

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Proverbs 5

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vv. 1-23

Avoiding Immorality

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M¹y son, pay attention to my wisdom; ²that you may maintain discretion ³Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey ⁴in the end she is bitter as wormwood, ⁵Her feet go down to death; ⁶She does not consider the path of life;

⁷So now, my sons, listen to me, ⁸Keep your path far from her; ⁹lest you concede your vigor to others, ¹⁰lest strangers feast on your wealth, ¹¹At the end of your life you will groan ¹²and you will say, “How I hated discipline, ¹³I did not listen to the voice of my teachers ¹⁴I am on the brink of utter ruin

¹⁵Drink water from your own cistern, ¹⁶Why should your springs flow in the streets, ¹⁷Let them be yours alone, ¹⁸May your fountain be blessed, ¹⁹A loving doe, a graceful fawn— ²⁰Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress,

²¹For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, ²²The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; ²³He dies for lack of discipline,

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01vv. 1-23Avoiding ImmoralityThe father calls his son to listen carefully so that discretion and guarded speech may preserve him from the flattering but deadly allure of adultery. He exposes the ruinous cost of immorality, commends delight in one's own spouse, and grounds the entire warning in the LORD's searching oversight of human ways.