Proverbs 5:12-23 ▼

12 and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

13 I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.

14 I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”

15 Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.

16 Why should your springs flow in the streets, your streams of water in the public squares?

17 Let them be yours alone, never to be shared with strangers.

18 May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth:

19 A loving doe, a graceful fawn— may her breasts satisfy you always; may you be captivated by her love forever.

20 Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?

21 For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and the LORD examines all his paths.

22 The iniquities of a wicked man entrap him; the cords of his sin entangle him.

23 He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.