Proverbs 5:1-23
1 My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
2 That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
3 For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her moutha is smoother than oil:
4 But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
6 Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
7 Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
9 Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
10 Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth;b and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
11 And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
12 And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
13 And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
14 I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfyc thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
20 And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
21 For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
22 His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.d
23 He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Contents: Caution against the sin of whoredom.
Characters: God, Solomon, his son.
Conclusion: We ought industriously to avoid everything that might be an occasion of the sin of adultery or a step towards it, for it is destructive of all the seeds of virtue of the soul and those who are entangled in it have but a step between them and hell.
Key Word: Strange woman, Proverbs 5:3.
Strong Verses: Proverbs 5:21; Proverbs 5:22.
Striking Facts: Proverbs 5:21. Those who practice adultery promise themselves secrecy (Job 24:15). All the workings of the heart and all the outgoings of the life are wide open to God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. Every action will be brought into judgment when Jesus comes.