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The Blue Letter Bible

Proverbs 5 :: English Standard Version (ESV)

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Warning Against Adultery

 

My son, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding,

that you may keep discretion,

and your lips may guard knowledge.

For the lips of a forbidden[fn] woman drip honey,

and her speech[fn] is smoother than oil,

but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to[fn] Sheol;

she does not ponder the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

   

And now, O sons, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

lest you give your honor to others

and your years to the merciless,

10 lest strangers take their fill of your strength,

and your labors go to the house of a foreigner,

11 and at the end of your life you groan,

when your flesh and body are consumed,

12 and you say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!

13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my instructors.

14 I am at the brink of utter ruin

in the assembled congregation.”

   

15 Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

17 Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you.

18 Let your fountain be blessed,

and rejoice in the wife of your youth,

19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.

Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;

be intoxicated[fn] always in her love.

20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?[fn]

21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,

and he ponders[fn] all his paths.

22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,

and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.

23 He dies for lack of discipline,

and because of his great folly he is led astray.

 
ESV Footnotes
Hebrew strange; also verse 20
Hebrew palate
Hebrew lay hold of
Hebrew be led astray; also verse 20
Hebrew a foreign woman
Or makes level
ESV

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version copyright © 2001, 2007, 2011, 2016 by Crossway Books and Bibles, a Publishing Ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

See detailed copyright information.

For more information on this translation, see the ESV Preface.

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Proverbs Chapter 5 — Additional Translations: