Proverbs 5:15–23

Proverbs 5:15–23 (Listen)

15   Drink water from your own cistern,
    flowing water from your own well.
16   Should your springs be scattered abroad,
    streams of water in the streets?
17   Let them be for yourself alone,
    and not for strangers with you.
18   Let your fountain be blessed,
    and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19     a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
  Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
    be intoxicatedHebrew be led astray; also verse 20">1 always in her love.
20   Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
    and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?Hebrew a foreign woman">2
21   For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
    and he pondersOr makes level">3 all his paths.
22   The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
    and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
23   He dies for lack of discipline,
    and because of his great folly he is led astray.

Footnotes

[2] 5:20 Hebrew a foreign woman

[3] 5:21 Or makes level