Warning Against Adultery Ch. 5

A Proverbs 5 Weaving of Scripture

Sep 29, 2024

This is a Proverbs chapter 5 rewrite. I have inserted parts of scripture where they seem to relate to the Proverbs in chapter 5. To maintain cohesion between the many passages, I’ve had to change some words. Verb-tense changes and pronoun changes are not noted, but additions and subtractions are indicated with brackets or ellipses. The original NIV Proverb’s chapters are italicized. All scripture is footnoted.

Note: This chapter has many parallels with Jeremiah where Israel is described as an adulterous wife who drinks water from other’s cisterns. In Proverbs, the son is warned not to run off with an adulterous woman and, instead, to drink water from his own cistern. The parallels truly are remarkable. I have put passages of Jeremiah alongside Proverbs to show how they mirror one another. However, to unify the two passages, I either had to make the Proverb’s son a daughter or change Jeremiah’s adulterous wife into an adulterous husband.

Because Proverbs is my primary text, I have chosen to make Israel an adulterous husband instead of a wife. I don’t think the point of these passages is that only women can be adulterers or that wisdom is only like a wife, but that a relationship with God is as sacred, eternal, and intimate as that of a spouse. And we all—husbands and wives alike—have committed adultery to God.

I hope this tapestry of scripture arrests you as it did me. I am releasing these one chapter every Sunday: Chapters 1-9, 30-31. Click the links below to return to a previous chapter. The next chapter links are available at the end once released.

Proverbs Chapter 5

Warning Against Adultery

My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my words of insight, [so] that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.1 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?2 For the lips of the adulterous woman drip honey, and her speech is smoother than oil, but in the end she is bitter as gall, sharp as a double-edged sword. Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to the grave. She gives no thought to the way of life. Her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it3 for dust she is and to dust she will return.4

a crack in the ground that looks like it has been cracked — Photo by Daniela Paola Alchapar on Unsplash

Now then, my [children], listen to me. Do not turn aside from what I say. Keep to a path far from her5 without turning aside to the right or to the left.6 Do not go near the door of her house, lest you lose your honor to others and your dignity to one who is cruel, lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich the house of another.

At the end of your life, you will groan when your flesh and body are spent.7 [And] God will say to you, “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.”8

You will say, “How I hated discipline! How my heart spurned correction! I would not obey my teachers or turn my ear to my instructors. I would not listen and I was soon in serious trouble in the assembly of God’s people.”9

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters.10 Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.11 A river watering the garden flowing from Eden.12

Should your springs overflow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?13 . . . Why go to Egypt to drink water from the Nile? And why go to Assyria to drink water from the Euphrates?14 . . . [Shall you] forsake [Wisdom], the spring of living water, and dig your own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water?15

Let [your faithfulness] be [Wisdom’s] alone, never to be shared with strangers. May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth16 . . . Remember the devotion of your youth, how as a [groom] you loved [her] and followed [her] through the wilderness, through a land not sown.17 A loving doe, a graceful deer—may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love.

Why, my son, be intoxicated with another man’s wife? Why embrace the bosom of a wayward woman?18 What fault do you . . . find in [the wife of your youth], that you stray so far from [her] . . . [to] follow worthless idols and became worthless yourselves.19

For your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths. The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them. The cords of their sins hold them fast. For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.20