Proverbs 5
International Children’s Bible
Warning About Adultery
5 My son, pay attention to my wisdom.
Listen to my words of understanding.
2 Be careful to use good sense.
Watch what you say.
3 The words of another man’s wife may seem sweet as honey.
Her words may be as pleasant as olive oil.
4 But in the end she will bring you sorrow.
She will cause you pain like a two-edged sword.
5 She is on the way to death.
Her steps are headed straight to the grave.
6 She gives no thought to life.
She does not know that her ways are wrong.
7 Now, my sons, listen to me.
Don’t ignore what I say.
8 Stay away from such a woman.
Don’t even go near the door of her house.
9 If you do, you will give your riches to others.
And the best years of your life will be given to someone who is cruel.
10 Strangers will enjoy your wealth.
And what you worked so hard for will go to someone else.
11 You will groan at the end of your life.
Then your health will be gone.
12 Then you will say, “I hated self-control!
I would not listen when I was corrected!
13 I would not listen to my teachers.
I paid no attention to what they taught me.
14 I have come very close to being completely ruined
in front of a whole group of people.”
15 Be faithful to your own wife.
She is like your own well of water from which you drink.
16 You wouldn’t drink from streams
flowing in the city streets or squares.
So be satisfied with your wife,
not those outside your home.
17 These things are yours alone.
Don’t share them with strangers.
18 Be happy with the wife
you married when you were young.
She gives you joys
as your fountain gives you water.
19 She is as lovely and graceful as a deer.
Let her love always make you happy.
Let her love always hold you captive.
20 My son, don’t be held captive by a woman who takes part in adultery.
Don’t hold another man’s wife.
21 The Lord sees everything you do.
He watches where you go.
22 An evil man will be caught in his evil ways.
He will be tied up by his sins as if they were ropes.
23 He will die because he does not control himself.
He will be held captive by his own foolishness.
Proverbs 5
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
5 My son, be attentive to my Wisdom [godly Wisdom learned by actual and costly experience], and incline your ear to my understanding [of what is becoming and prudent for you],
2 That you may exercise proper discrimination and discretion and your lips may guard and keep knowledge and the wise answer [to temptation].
3 For the lips of a loose woman drip honey as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil;(A)
4 But in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged and devouring sword.
5 Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol (Hades, the place of the dead).
6 She loses sight of and walks not in the path of life; her ways wind about aimlessly, and you cannot know them.
7 Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and depart not from the words of my mouth.
8 Let your way in life be far from her, and come not near the door of her house [avoid the very scenes of temptation],(B)
9 Lest you give your honor to others and your years to those without mercy,
10 Lest strangers [and false teachings] take their fill of your strength and wealth and your labors go to the house of an alien [from God]—
11 And you groan and mourn when your end comes, when your flesh and body are consumed,
12 And you say, How I hated instruction and discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
13 I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers nor submitted and consented to those who instructed me.
14 [The extent and boldness of] my sin involved almost all evil [in the estimation] of the congregation and the community.
15 [a]Drink waters out of your own cistern [of a pure marriage relationship], and fresh running waters out of your own well.
16 Should your offspring be dispersed abroad as water brooks in the streets?
17 [Confine yourself to your own wife] let your children be for you alone, and not the children of strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain [of human life] be blessed [with the rewards of fidelity], and rejoice in the wife of your youth.
19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant doe [tender, gentle, attractive]—let her bosom satisfy you at all times, and always be transported with delight in her love.
20 Why should you, my son, be infatuated with a loose woman, embrace the bosom of an outsider, and go astray?
21 For the ways of man are directly before the eyes of the Lord, and He [Who would have us live soberly, chastely, and godly] carefully weighs all man’s goings.(C)
22 His own iniquities shall ensnare the wicked man, and he shall be held with the cords of his sin.
23 He will die for lack of discipline and instruction, and in the greatness of his folly he will go astray and be lost.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 5:15 All of the Ten Commandments are reflected in the book of Proverbs; here it is the seventh, “You shall not commit adultery.”
The Holy Bible, International Children’s Bible® Copyright© 1986, 1988, 1999, 2015 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.
Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation
