What does Proverbs Chapter 5 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 5 heads avoidance of unlawful lust and its occasions. The son is told to attend wisdom and prudence, keep thoughts and preserve instruction in lips, and not mind a woman’s deceit. A harlot’s lips resemble dripping honeycomb and her throat oil’s smoothness, but her end is wormwood bitterness and a two-edged sword. Her feet descend into death and steps into hell, not grave substituted; wandering steps do not follow life’s path.

Hear and retain words; keep way far from her and avoid her house’s doors. Do not give honor to strangers or years to cruel people, lest strangers take strength and labors go to another house, and the hearer mourn at last with flesh and body spent. The imagined lament asks why instruction and reproof were rejected, teachers unheard and masters disregarded, saying almost all evil was encountered amid church and congregation. Disease, a deathbed and a witnessed public confession are not supplied.

Drink from own cistern and well; let fountains be conveyed abroad and waters divided in streets, yet keep them alone without strangers partaking. Let the vein be blessed and rejoice with the wife of youth, dearest hind and agreeable fawn, with breasts inebriating and continual delight in love. Both water instructions remain without silently omitting the outward distribution.

The teacher asks why the son is seduced by a strange woman and cherished in another’s bosom. The Lord beholds ways and considers steps; iniquities catch the wicked, bound in own sins’ ropes. He shall die for not receiving instruction and be deceived in much folly. These warnings are not a clinical diagnosis or a report that a particular hearer was cured.

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

1
Opening comparisons and commands retain the chapter’s wording.
2
The speaker’s examples and future assertions remain attributed.
3
Closing 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 67570–67575
5:3. For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb dropping, and her throat is smoother than oil. 5:4. But her end is bitter as wormwood, and sharp as a two-edged sword. 5:5. Her feet go down into death, and her steps go in as far as hell.
Lines 67583–67589
5:8. Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the doors of her house. 5:9. Give not thy honour to strangers, and thy years to the cruel. 5:10. Lest strangers be filled with thy strength, and thy labours be in another man’s house,
Lines 67603–67612
5:15. Drink water out of thy own cistern, and the streams of thy own well: 5:16. Let thy fountains be conveyed abroad, and in the streets divide thy waters. 5:17. Keep them to thyself alone, neither let strangers be partakers with thee. 5:18. Let thy vein be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth: