Proverbs

Chapter 6

Warnings against Foolishness and Warnings against Adultery

Proverbs 6 gathers a series of warnings against self-inflicted ruin: reckless financial entanglement, laziness, deceitful wickedness, and the kinds of pride, violence, and falsehood the LORD hates. It then returns to parental instruction as a lamp that guards the son from adultery, insisting that sexual sin brings unavoidable shame, injury, and relational vengeance.

As the sixth chapter of Proverbs, this passage widens the book's wisdom training beyond one single vice and shows how folly appears in money, work, speech, social harm, and sexuality. It demonstrates that wisdom must govern the whole life because different forms of undisciplined desire all end in loss, while God's instruction exposes and restrains them.

2 sections·258 words·~1 min read

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Proverbs 6

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vv. 1-19

Warnings against Foolishness

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M¹y son, if you have put up security for your neighbor, ²if you have been trapped by the words of your lips, ³then do this, my son, to free yourself, ⁴Allow no sleep to your eyes ⁵Free yourself, like a gazelle from the hand of the hunter,

⁶Walk in the manner of the ant, O slacker; ⁷Without a commander, ⁸it prepares its provisions in summer; ⁹How long will you lie there, O slacker? ¹⁰A little sleep, a little slumber, ¹¹and poverty will come upon you like a robber,

¹²A worthless person, a wicked man, ¹³winking his eyes, speaking with his feet, ¹⁴With deceit in his heart he devises evil; ¹⁵Therefore calamity will come upon him suddenly;

¹⁶There are six things that the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to Him: ¹⁷haughty eyes, ¹⁸a heart that devises wicked schemes, ¹⁹a false witness who gives false testimony,

vv. 20-35

Warnings against Adultery

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M²⁰y son, keep your father’s commandment, ²¹Bind them always upon your heart; ²²When you walk, they will guide you; ²³For this commandment is a lamp, this teaching is a light, ²⁴to keep you from the evil woman,

²⁵Do not lust in your heart for her beauty ²⁶For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, ²⁷Can a man embrace fire ²⁸Can a man walk on hot coals ²⁹So is he who sleeps with another man’s wife;

³⁰Men do not despise the thief ³¹Yet if caught, he must pay sevenfold; ³²He who commits adultery lacks judgment; ³³Wounds and dishonor will befall him, ³⁴For jealousy enrages a husband, ³⁵He will not be appeased by any ransom,

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