Proverbs 5
Listen to wise teaching
1 My child, listen carefully to the wisdom that I teach you. I will teach you how to understand things well. 2 If you learn this, you will choose to do the right things in life. Your words will show that you are wise.
3 Do not listen to the words of an adulteress. She promises something as sweet as honey and as beautiful as olive oil. 4 But in the end, she gives you bitter food, like poison. She gives you pain like a sharp sword.
5:4Chapter 5 tells about a woman who likes to have sex with different men. She tries to deceive men so that they will have sex with her.
5 She will lead you down to the place of death. You will follow her to your grave! 6 She does not think about the way that leads to true life. She has lost the right road but she does not understand what she is doing.
7 So listen to me, my children. Never forget what I am telling you.
8 Keep far away from a woman like that! Do not even go near the door of her house. 9 If you go with her, you will lose your honour. A cruel person will rob you of the best years of your life. 10 Strangers will take all your money. The good things that you have worked for will belong to someone else.
11 At the end of your life, you will weep with pain. Your body will be sick and weak. 12 You will say, ‘I should have listened when people warned me that I was doing bad things. 13 I did not listen to my teachers. I refused to obey them.
14 Now I will be completely ashamed when I meet together with all the people.’
Be faithful to your wife
15 You should enjoy your own wife, as you enjoy clean water to drink.
16 You would not pour your good water onto the streets. So do not waste your love on other women. 17 Keep it for you and your wife. Do not share it with other women.
18 Enjoy sex with your own wife. May the wife that you married when you were young continue to give you joy. 19 May she be as pretty and beautiful as a young deer. May her breasts always make you happy. May she love you in a way that gives you joy.
20 So my son, do not let an adulteress deceive you. Do not enjoy the body of another man's wife.
21 The Lord sees everything that a person does. He knows every path that you go along.
22 The sins of a wicked person will be the trap that catches him. They will hold him like strong ropes. 23 He cannot control his sins, so he will die. He will become lost, because he does such stupid things.