Numbers 25:1-3
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Worship of Baal of Peor
25 While Israel was staying at Shittim, the people began to have sexual relations with the women of Moab.(A) 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods.(B) 3 Thus Israel yoked itself to the Baal of Peor, and the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel.(C)
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2 Samuel 11
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
David Commits Adultery with Bathsheba
11 In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab with his officers and all Israel with him; they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.(A)
2 It happened, late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking about on the roof of the king’s house, that he saw from the roof a woman bathing; the woman was very beautiful.(B) 3 David sent someone to inquire about the woman. It was reported, “This is Bathsheba daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.”(C) 4 So David sent messengers to get her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. (Now she was purifying herself after her period.) Then she returned to her house.(D) 5 The woman conceived, and she sent and told David, “I am pregnant.”(E)
6 So David sent word to Joab, “Send me Uriah the Hittite.” And Joab sent Uriah to David. 7 When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab and the people fared and how the war was going. 8 Then David said to Uriah, “Go down to your house and wash your feet.” Uriah went out of the king’s house, and there followed him a present from the king.(F) 9 But Uriah slept at the entrance of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. 10 When they told David, “Uriah did not go down to his house,” David said to Uriah, “You have just come from a journey. Why did you not go down to your house?” 11 Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah remain in booths,[a] and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field; shall I then go to my house to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do such a thing.”(G) 12 Then David said to Uriah, “Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back.” So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day. On the next day,[b] 13 David invited him to eat and drink in his presence and made him drunk, and in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.(H)
David Has Uriah Killed
14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah.(I) 15 In the letter he wrote, “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, so that he may be struck down and die.”(J) 16 As Joab kept watch over the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant warriors. 17 The men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell. Uriah the Hittite was killed as well.(K) 18 Then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting, 19 and he instructed the messenger, “When you have finished telling the king all the news about the fighting, 20 if the king’s anger rises and if he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? 21 Who killed Abimelech son of Jerubbaal?[c] Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall, so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’ then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead, too.’ ”(L)
22 So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent him to tell. 23 The messenger said to David, “The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate. 24 Then the archers shot at your servants from the wall; some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.” 25 David said to the messenger, “Thus you shall say to Joab, ‘Do not let this matter trouble you, for the sword devours now one and now another; press your attack on the city and overthrow it.’ And encourage him.”
26 When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him.(M) 27 When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.
Nathan Condemns David
But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord,(N)
1 Kings 11:1-6
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Solomon’s Errors
11 King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,(A) 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the Israelites, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for they will surely incline your heart to follow their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love.(B) 3 Among his wives were seven hundred princesses and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David.(C) 5 For Solomon followed Astarte the goddess of the Sidonians and Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.(D) 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not completely follow the Lord, as his father David had done.
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Proverbs 2:16-19
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16 You will be saved from the loose woman,[a]
from the adulteress[b] with her smooth words,(A)
17 who forsakes the partner of her youth
and forgets her sacred covenant,
18 for her way[c] leads down to death
and her paths to the shades;(B)
19 those who go to her never come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.
Proverbs 5:3-23
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
3 For the lips of a loose woman[a] drip honey,
and her speech is smoother than oil,(A)
4 but in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.(B)
5 Her feet go down to death;
her steps follow the path to Sheol.
6 She does not keep straight to the path of life;
her ways wander, and she does not know it.
7 And now, my child,[b] listen to me,
and do not depart from the words of my mouth.(C)
8 Keep your way far from her,
and do not go near the door of her house,(D)
9 lest you give your honor to others
and your years to the merciless,
10 and strangers take their fill of your wealth,
and your labors go to the house of an alien,
11 and at the end of your life you groan,
when your flesh and body are consumed,
12 and you say, “Oh, how I hated discipline,
and my heart despised reproof!(E)
13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers
or incline my ear to my instructors.
14 Now I am at the point of utter ruin
in the public assembly.”
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?(F)
17 Let them be for yourself alone
and not for sharing with strangers.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,(G)
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
May her breasts satisfy you at all times;
may you be intoxicated always by her love.(H)
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?[c](I)
21 For human ways are under the eyes of the Lord,
and he examines all their paths.(J)
22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare them,
and they are caught in the coils of their sin.(K)
23 They die for lack of discipline,
and because of their great folly they are lost.(L)
Proverbs 7
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The False Attractions of Adultery
7 My child, keep my words
and store up my commandments with you;(A)
2 keep my commandments and live;
keep my teachings as the apple[a] of your eye;(B)
3 bind them on your fingers;
write them on the tablet of your heart.(C)
4 Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,”
and call insight your intimate friend,
5 that they may keep you from the loose woman,[b]
from the adulteress[c] with her smooth words.(D)
6 For at the window of my house
I looked out through my lattice,
7 and I saw among the simple ones,
I observed among the youths,
a young man without sense,(E)
8 passing along the street near her corner,
taking the road to her house(F)
9 in the twilight, in the evening,
at the time of night and darkness.(G)
10 Then a woman comes toward him
decked out like a prostitute, with hidden intent.
11 She is loud and wayward;
her feet do not stay at home;(H)
12 now in the street, now in the squares,
and at every corner she lies in wait.(I)
13 She seizes him and kisses him,
and with impudent face she says to him:
14 “I had to offer sacrifices,
and today I have paid my vows;(J)
15 so now I have come out to meet you,
to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!
16 I have decked my couch with coverings,
colored spreads of Egyptian linen;(K)
17 I have perfumed my bed with myrrh,
aloes, and cinnamon.
18 Come, let us take our fill of love until morning;
let us delight ourselves with love.
19 For my husband is not at home;
he has gone on a long journey.
20 He took a bag of money with him;
he will not come home until full moon.”
21 With much seductive speech she persuades him;
with her smooth talk she compels him.(L)
22 Right away he follows her
and goes like an ox to the slaughter
or bounds like a stag toward the trap[d]
23 until an arrow pierces its entrails.
He is like a bird rushing into a snare,
not knowing that it will cost him his life.(M)
24 And now, my children, listen to me,
and be attentive to the words of my mouth.(N)
25 Do not let your hearts turn aside to her ways;
do not stray into her paths.(O)
26 For many are those she has laid low,
and numerous are her victims.(P)
27 Her house is the way to Sheol,
going down to the chambers of death.(Q)
Proverbs 23:27
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Footnotes
- 23.27 Heb alien woman
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.