Proverbs 6:19-29

19 a lying witness who gives false testimony,[a] and one who stirs up trouble among brothers.[b]

Warning against Adultery

20 My son, keep your father's command, and don't reject your mother's teaching.[c]
21 Always bind them to your heart; tie them around your neck.[d]
22 When you walk here and there, they will guide you; when you lie down, they will watch over you; when you wake up, they will talk to you.
23 For a commandment is a lamp, teaching is a light,[e] and corrective instructions are the way to life.[f]
24 They will protect you from an evil woman,[g] from the flattering[h] tongue of a stranger.[i]
25 Don't lust in your heart for her beauty or let her captivate you with her eyelashes.
26 For a prostitute's fee is only a loaf of bread,[j] but an adulteress[k] goes after [your] very life.[l]
27 Can a man embrace fire[m] and his clothes not be burned?
28 Can a man walk on coals without scorching his feet?
29 So it is with the one who sleeps with another man's wife; no one who touches her will go unpunished.

Proverbs 6:19-29 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PROVERBS 6

In this chapter the wise man dissuades from rash suretyship; exposes the sin of idleness; describes a wicked man; makes mention of seven things hateful to God; exhorts to attend to parental instructions and precepts, and cautions against adultery. Suretyship is described, Pr 6:1; and represented as a snare and a net, in which men are taken, Pr 6:2; and advice is given what to do in such a case, for safety in it, and deliverance from it, Pr 6:3-5; The sin of slothfulness is exposed, by observing the industry of the ant, Pr 6:6-8; by expostulating with the sluggard for his continuance in sloth, and by mimicking him, Pr 6:9,10; and by the poverty it brings upon him, Pr 6:11. Then a naughty wicked man is described, by his mouth, eyes, feet, fingers, and heart, whose ruin is sudden and inevitable, Pr 6:11-15. The seven things hateful to God are particularly named, Pr 6:16-19. And next the exhortation in some preceding chapters is reassumed, to attend to the instructions of parents; which will be found ornamental, pleasant, and useful, Pr 6:20-23. Especially to preserve from the lewd woman cautioned against, Pr 6:24,25; whose company is dissuaded from; on account of the extreme poverty and distress she brings persons to, and even danger of life, Pr 6:26; from the unavoidable ruin such come into, Pr 6:27-29; from the sin of uncleanness being greater than that of theft, Pr 6:30,31; from the folly the adulterer betrays; from the destruction of his soul, and the disgrace he brings on himself, Pr 6:32,33; and from the rage and irreconcilable offence of the husband of the adulteress, Pr 6:34,35.

Footnotes 13

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