Proverbs 5

Warning Against Adultery

[1] My son, be attentive to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my understanding,

[2] that you may keep discretion,

and your lips may guard knowledge.

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

and her speech is smoother than oil,

[4] but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a two-edged sword.

[5] Her feet go down to death;

her steps follow the path to Sheol;

[6] she does not ponder the path of life;

her ways wander, and she does not know it.

[7] And now, O sons, listen to me,

and do not depart from the words of my mouth.

[8] Keep your way far from her,

and do not go near the door of her house,

[9] 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 always in her love.

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

and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

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

and he ponders 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)