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Proverbs 5

Proverbs 5 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

Proverbs 5 gives a direct warning about sexual unfaithfulness and the ruin it brings. It calls the reader to pay attention to wisdom, avoid temptation, and treasure covenant faithfulness. The chapter also speaks positively about enjoying a loving marriage with gratitude, self-control, and respect before the Lord.

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What happens in Proverbs 5?

The chapter begins with a fatherly appeal to listen closely and keep sound judgment. It warns that sin can look appealing at first, but it ends in bitterness, loss, and regret. The reader is urged to stay far from temptation rather than test it. Proverbs 5 then turns to the joy and goodness of faithfulness in marriage, using water imagery to picture exclusive delight. The final verses stress that God sees every path, and that unchecked sin traps and destroys the one who ignores discipline.

Proverbs 5 sits in the early collection of Solomon's sayings, where wisdom is often taught as a path that protects life. This chapter continues the repeated father-to-son instruction found in Proverbs 1-9, especially the call to choose wisdom over seductive folly. It fits with nearby warnings about moral danger and with Proverbs' broader concern for daily obedience before God.

Themes to notice

  • Resist temptationSin may sound attractive at first, but wisdom sees where it leads and chooses distance instead of compromise.
  • Marriage faithfulnessThe chapter praises exclusive delight in a spouse and treats covenant love as a good gift to be cherished.
  • God sees pathsHuman choices are not hidden from the Lord, and ignoring discipline leads to entanglement and loss.

Questions for Proverbs 5

  • What warning signs in this chapter help explain why temptation should be avoided early and completely?
  • How does Proverbs 5 describe the difference between faithfulness and unfaithfulness?
  • What does it mean to live with the awareness that the Lord examines every path?

Read the full text of Proverbs 5 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

Proverbs 5

Avoiding Immorality

1My son, pay attention to my wisdom;

incline your ear to my insight,

2that you may maintain discretion

and your lips may preserve knowledge.

3Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey

and her speech is smoother than oil,

4in the end she is bitter as wormwood,

sharp as a double-edged sword.

5Her feet go down to death;

her steps lead straight to Sheol.

6She does not consider the path of life;

she does not know that her ways are unstable.

7So now, my sons, listen to me,

and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.

8Keep your path far from her;

do not go near the door of her house,

9lest you concede your vigor to others,

and your years to one who is cruel;

10lest strangers feast on your wealth,

and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.

11At the end of your life you will groan

when your flesh and your body are spent,

12and you will say, “How I hated discipline,

and my heart despised reproof!

13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers

or incline my ear to my mentors.

14I am on the brink of utter ruin

in the midst of the whole assembly.”

15Drink water from your own cistern,

and running water from your own well.

16Why should your springs flow in the streets,

your streams of water in the public squares?

17Let them be yours alone,

never to be shared with strangers.

18May your fountain be blessed,

and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:

19A loving doe, a graceful fawn—

may her breasts satisfy you always;

may you be captivated by her love forever.

20Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress,

or embrace the bosom of a stranger?

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

and the LORD examines all his paths.

22The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him;

the cords of his sin entangle him.

23He dies for lack of discipline,

led astray by his own great folly.

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