Proverbs · 23 verses
Proverbs 5
Every verse links to the people and places named in it, and to the passages readers connect it with.
The chapter
What happens here
Atlas's own reading, written from this chapter and nothing else, and published only once a person has approved it. Each scene names the verses it covers; the names inside it link to the people and places they name.
A warning about adultery turns, quite without apology, into cisterns, springs, wells, and the wife’s breasts—a household plumbing metaphor with an unusually memorable final flourish.
Honey at the door, bitterness belowvv. 1–14
The speaker begins with wisdom, discretion, and preserved knowledge, then introduces the forbidden woman: honey on her lips, oil in her speech, wormwood in the end. Her feet descend towards death, while the heedless man’s strength, years, wealth, and labour pass to others. At the end comes the groan of a man who hated discipline, ignored teachers and mentors, and finds himself on the brink of ruin in the midst of the assembly.
The domestic water supplyvv. 15–20
The warning changes its scenery altogether. Adultery is now pictured as water escaping into streets and public squares, while faithful desire is gathered at one’s own cistern and well. The fountain is blessed, the wife of youth becomes a loving doe and graceful fawn, and her breasts are praised with a frankness that leaves the chapter’s plumbing metaphor nowhere left to hide.
The cords close around himvv. 21–23
The final turn leaves the household and looks upward: a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, who examines every path. The wicked man is not merely accused from outside; his own iniquities entrap him and his own folly leads him astray, until he dies for lack of discipline.
The text
Read it
Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Names the Hebrew and Greek put in the verse link to the person, place or people they name; the address beside each verse is a link to that verse, which is what a reader copies and shares.
Prov 5:1My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,
Prov 5:2that you may maintain discretion and your lips may preserve knowledge.
Prov 5:3Though the lips of the forbidden woman drip honey and her speech is smoother than oil,
Prov 5:4in the end she is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword.
Prov 5:5Her feet go down to death; her steps lead straight to Sheol.
Prov 5:6She does not consider the path of life; she does not know that her ways are unstable.
Prov 5:7So now, my sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the words of my mouth.
Prov 5:8Keep your path far from her; do not go near the door of her house,
Prov 5:9lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;
Prov 5:10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.
Prov 5:11At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,
Prov 5:12and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!
Prov 5:13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.
Prov 5:14I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”
Prov 5:15Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
Prov 5:16Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?
Prov 5:17Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.
Prov 5:18May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:
Prov 5:19A loving doe, a graceful fawn—may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.
Prov 5:20Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Prov 5:21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.
Prov 5:22The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.
Prov 5:23He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
02 — Read alongside
Where this is echoed
Readers' own connections, from OpenBible's crowd-voted cross-references — agreement about relevance, and not scholarly confidence. 177 passages were voted onto 22 verses of this chapter; the 16 shown lead on votes, and each is listed at the verse it was voted onto most strongly.
- 18Ecclesiastes 9:9Enjoy life with your beloved wife all the days of the fleeting life that God has given you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For this is your portion in life and in your labor under the sun.
- 21Hebrews 4:13Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
- 1Proverbs 22:17Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise—apply your mind to my knowledge—
- 21Proverbs 15:3The eyes of the LORD are in every place, observing the evil and the good.
- 3Proverbs 2:16It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words
- 151 Corinthians 7:2–5But because there is so much sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife, and each woman her own husband.
- 18Malachi 2:14–15Yet you ask, “Why?” It is because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have broken faith, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.
- 8Ephesians 5:11Have no fellowship with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
- 8Proverbs 7:25Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.
- 21Job 34:21For His eyes are on the ways of a man, and He sees his every step.
- 21Jeremiah 32:19the One great in counsel and mighty in deed, whose eyes are on all the ways of the sons of men, to reward each one according to his ways and according to the fruit of his deeds.
- 4Ecclesiastes 7:26And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is ensnared.
- 12Proverbs 12:1Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.
- 15Hebrews 13:4Marriage should be honored by all and the marriage bed kept undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
- 23Job 36:12But if they do not obey, then they perish by the sword and die without knowledge.
- 1Revelation 2:11He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who overcomes will not be harmed by the second death.
Onward