Proverbs 5 · The Lantern

Avoiding Immorality

My son, attend to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,

to keep discretion, and that your lips may guard knowledge.

For the lips of a strange woman drip honey, and her palate is smoother than oil,

Even when the sinner looks for gratification, he doesn't find the fruit of his sin pleasant. As the wisdom of God says in another place, "Bread of deceit is pleasant to a man, but after he eats it, his mouth will be filled with gravel." And, "Honey drips from the lips of an adulteress, and for a time it tastes sweet, but in the end you will find it more bitter than gall and sha…

Therefore one gives this admonition; "Observe not the beauty of a strange woman, and meet not a woman addicted to fornication.

For the lips of a harlot are like a honeycomb distilling. For in the mouth of heretics, the sweetness of eloquence not only resounds to sufficiency, but to superfluity; and for this reason, because falsehood is discerned to be aptly spoken, it is deemed truth by the foolish.

but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

Nothing can be more bitter than sin, even though certain sins seem sweet at first, just as Solomon writes: "but in the end," he says, "you will find it more bitter than gall" — that which at the beginning seemed sweet — "and sharper than the edge of a sword." But the nature of righteousness is contrary; at the beginnings it seems more bitter, but in the end it is found sweeter…

But her end is bitter, etc. The drink of wormwood becomes bitter within the bowels, outwardly the members are wounded by the sword. Therefore, to show the wicked in the final retribution, both internally to be filled, and externally surrounded by perpetual punishments, he assures that they will be tormented by the bitterness of wormwood, and slaughtered by the sword.

Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold of Sheol.

Lest she weigh the path of life, her tracks wander and she does not know it.

And now, sons, listen to me, and do not turn aside from the sayings of my mouth.

Keep your way far from her, and do not come near the opening of her house,

lest you give your splendor to others, and your years to a cruel one;

lest strangers be filled with your strength, and your labors be in the house of a foreigner;

and you groan at your end, when your flesh and your body are consumed,

and you say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart spurned rebuke!

And I did not listen to the voice of my teachers, and did not incline my ear to those who taught me.

I was almost in every evil, in the midst of the assembly and the congregation.”

Drink water from your own cistern, and flowing water from the midst of your own well.

Attempt therefore, you also, O hearer, to have your own well and your own fountain; that you too, when you have taken hold of the book of the scriptures, may begin even from your own understanding to bring forth some meaning, and according to those things which you have learned in the church, attempt you also to drink from the fountain of your own natural ability.

[Daniel 2:22] "It is He who reveals deep and hidden things, and He knows what is placed in the darkness, and with Him is the light." A man to whom God makes profound revelations and who can say, "O the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God!" (Romans 11:33), he it is who by the indwelling Spirit probes even into the deep things of God, and digs the deepest of we…

"Drink water from your own cistern," etc. Use your own wife's desire and cherish her with devoted services.

Should your springs be scattered abroad, streams of water in the open places?

Let them be yours alone, and not for strangers with you.

Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth —

a loving doe, a graceful mountain goat. Let her breasts satisfy you at every time; in her love may you reel always.

And why should you reel, my son, with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a foreign woman?

For the ways of a man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he weighs all his tracks.

His own iniquities will capture him, the wicked man, and he will be held by the cords of his sin.

Clothed as you are in the rotten garments of your offenses and "held fast in the meshes of your own sins," listen to the prophet's voice saying, "Wash yourselves clean! Put away the misdeeds of your souls from before my eyes," that the angelic choir may chant over you: "Happy [are] they whose faults are taken away, whose sins are covered."

I have previously said that we are punished by God because of our sins, and now I say that we are punished by ourselves. Both are true. We are, indeed, punished by God, but we act so that he has to punish us. Since we ourselves cause our own punishment, who doubts that we punish ourselves for our own crimes?

The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him, etc. There is a difference between a sinner and a wicked person, because a sinner is called anyone who falls into either small or great crimes; but a wicked person is one who either never accepts the faith or, by the enormity of his crimes, becomes anathema from the faith he once received, like heretics or Catholics involved in public s…

He will die for lack of discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he will reel.

Proverbs5

Avoiding Immorality