Chapter VII · Location 7 of 31
Chapter 7 · Open to readFrom Proverbs · Douay–Rheims / Challoner (1749–1752)
What does Proverbs Chapter 7 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?
Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary
Opening comparisons and commands retain the chapter’s wording. The speaker’s examples and future assertions remain attributed. Closing sayings are preserved without added events or universal guarantees.
Chapter breakdown
Proverbs 7 heads love of wisdom as the best preservative against temptation. The son is called to keep words and precepts, commands unto life and law as eye’s apple, binding on fingers and writing on heart’s tables. Call wisdom sister and prudence friend to be kept from the woman not his and the stranger’s sweet words. A sole-defense doctrine is not added.
The speaker looked through a house window’s lattice and sees little ones and a foolish young man passing a street corner near her house in late darkness. A woman in harlot’s attire meets him, prepared to deceive, talkative and wandering, unable to stay quiet at home, abroad and waiting at corners. She catches and kisses him, flattering with an impudent face. No emerging-shadow scene or identified warrior victim is supplied.
She says she vowed victims for prosperity and paid vows that day, came desiring him and found him. Her bed has woven cords and Egyptian painted tapestry, perfumed with myrrh, aloes and cinnamon. She invites inebriating breasts and embraces until day appears, claiming her husband is on a long journey with a bag of money and will return at full moon. Money is not gold, and her claims remain speech rather than independently confirmed travel facts.
Many words entangle and lip flattery draws him; immediately he follows like an ox led to be a victim and a wanton lamb, not knowing he is drawn like a fool to bonds, until the arrow pierces his liver, like a bird hastening to a snare ignorant of life’s danger. These comparisons do not become an observed physical killing. Hear words and do not let mind be drawn or deceived in paths: she cast down many wounded, even the strongest slain; her house is hell’s way reaching death’s inner chambers.
The story inside
Opening: Opening comparisons and commands retain the chapter’s wording. Development: The speaker’s examples and future assertions remain attributed. Conclusion: Closing sayings are preserved without added events or universal guarantees.
Lessons worth keeping
- 1Opening comparisons and commands retain the chapter’s wording.
- 2The speaker’s examples and future assertions remain attributed.
- 3Closing sayings are preserved without added events or universal guarantees.
Test your recall
Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?
Source edition and notes
Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.
Lines 67750–67751
Keep my commandments, and thou shalt live: and my law as the apple of thy eye:
Lines 67753–67753
Bind it upon thy fingers, write it upon the tables of thy heart.
Lines 67755–67755
Say to wisdom: Thou art my sister: and call prudence thy friend,
Lines 67802–67804
Immediately he followeth her as an ox led to be a victim, and as a lamb playing the wanton, and not knowing that he is drawn like a fool to bonds,
Lines 67815–67816
For she hath cast down many wounded, and the strongest have been slain by her.
Lines 67818–67819
Her house is the way to hell, reaching even to the inner chambers of death.
