The big picture
A parent warns a son about an affair that begins with sweet speech and ends in loss. The warning counts its cost in honour, years, wealth, health, and regret over rejected teaching. It then gives a positive picture of desire within marriage. Delight is urged in the wife of youth. Water drawn from one's own well supplies the image of faithful intimacy. The final lines place every path before the Lord and show sin binding the person who chooses it.
In this chapter
- Sweet Speech Hides a Bitter Destination Proverbs 5:1-6
Attention to wisdom will keep the son's judgement and speech sound.
- Distance Now Prevents Regret Later Proverbs 5:7-14
The children are told to listen and keep far from the woman's doorway.
- Delight Belongs Within the Marriage Bond Proverbs 5:15-20
His own well is the source from which the son is told to drink.
- Sin Becomes the Rope That Holds Proverbs 5:21-23
The Lord sees a person's ways and weighs every step.
Central truth
The parent warns that adultery consumes life and urges lasting delight within marriage, under the Lord who sees every path.
Scripture beside the summary
Proverbs · King James Version · 23Proverbs 5:1-6
Sweet Speech Hides a Bitter Destination
Attention to wisdom will keep the son's judgement and speech sound. An unfaithful woman's words are pictured as honey and smooth oil. What they lead to is different: bitter pain and a blade sharp on both sides. Her steps descend towards death. Her ways shift so that the son cannot depend on understanding them. The warning asks him to look past the opening appeal. A pleasing voice is not proof of a safe path, and its later cost cannot be measured by its first sweetness.
In everyday life
A travelling husband receives warm messages from another guest, followed by an invitation to conceal a private meeting. He reads the request again after the first pleasure of being admired passes. The smooth words now include a demand to deceive his spouse. He closes the exchange. Proverbs describes the adulterous route as ending in death.
Notice
Proverbs 5:4 The ending is contrasted with the opening sweetness. The warning measures the invitation by its outcome, rather than treating pleasant speech as reliable evidence of good intent.
Proverbs 5:1-6
King James Version1My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
2That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.
3For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:
4But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.
5Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.
6Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.
Proverbs 5:7-14
Distance Now Prevents Regret Later
The children are told to listen and keep far from the woman's doorway. The parent does not advise testing the attraction at close range. Giving way risks handing honour, years, wealth, and the fruit of work to others. The warning then imagines a body worn down and a late cry of regret. The person admits hating instruction and refusing teachers while near total ruin before the gathered community. The loss is not only private disappointment. A secret choice has consequences that reach possessions, health, reputation, and the chance to learn before damage is done.
In everyday life
A man facing the end of an affair sits with a counsellor and lists the money, trust, and working time it has cost. Old messages show friends urging him to stop months earlier. He looks at those warnings without pretending they never arrived. The regret now has names and dates. Proverbs speaks of severe ruin following refused instruction.
Notice
Proverbs 5:12 The imagined regret names hatred of correction, not lack of access to it. The warning makes refusal to listen part of the path towards loss.
Proverbs 5:7-14
King James Version7Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:
9Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
10Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;
11And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,
12And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;
13And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!
14I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.
Proverbs 5:15-20
Delight Belongs Within the Marriage Bond
His own well is the source from which the son is told to drink. Wells and fountains picture intimate life that belongs within marriage rather than being shared with outsiders. The positive command is to rejoice with the wife of his youth. She is compared to a graceful deer, and bodily desire within their bond is welcomed. The parent asks why the son would seek that delight with another woman. The chapter does not answer temptation only by forbidding pleasure. It directs sexual affection towards the spouse with whom a lasting commitment already exists.
In everyday life
A husband puts away his phone when his wife brings their old holiday album to the sofa. They laugh at a familiar photograph, move closer, and plan an evening together. Attention returns to the person whose life is already joined with his. Their affection has room to be renewed. Proverbs speaks more directly of sexual delight within marriage.
Notice
Proverbs 5:18 The wife is the wife of youth, so the call concerns delight within an existing bond. Faithfulness is joined to renewed affection, not merely remaining legally married.
Proverbs 5:15-20
King James Version15Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.
18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
19Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
20And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Proverbs 5:21-23
Sin Becomes the Rope That Holds
The Lord sees a person's ways and weighs every step. The secrecy assumed by an affair does not make its path invisible to him. The wicked person is then caught by his own wrongdoing, as though sins have become ropes around him. Refused instruction and great folly lead him astray and towards death. The warning ends with responsibility resting on the choices that formed the trap. The loss is not presented as an arbitrary punishment unrelated to conduct. What seemed like freedom has become a bond the person struggles to shake off.
In everyday life
A bookkeeper who hid one false payment now opens the ledger to find every later entry depends on maintaining that lie. She cannot correct one line without exposing the rest. The deception that promised room has made each choice narrower. She asks for an independent review. Proverbs places sin's binding effect under the Lord's complete sight.
Notice
Proverbs 5:22 The cords are the wrongdoer's own sins. The picture makes the trap grow from chosen conduct, rather than from an unrelated force arriving from outside.
Proverbs 5:21-23
King James Version21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.
22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.
23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Details worth noticing
The opening image
Proverbs 5:1 begins with “My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:”
Where the chapter turns
Proverbs 5:4 forms a natural hinge: “But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a twoedged sword.”
The final note
Proverbs 5:23 leaves the reader with “He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.”
A word trail through the chapter
The words Lest, waters, house, instruction, lips, mouth help reveal the chapter’s repeated concerns.
KJV words made clear
- wormwood
- A bitter plant used here as an image of a painful outcome.
- cistern
- A reservoir or pit used to collect and store water.
- hind
- A female deer, used here as a graceful comparison.
Music and video connected to the passage
Related media appears when its Scripture reference overlaps this study. Music and video can illuminate a theme while the biblical text remains the foundation.
