Proverbs 5:15-20

15 Do you know the saying, "Drink from your own rain barrel, draw water from your own spring-fed well"?
16 It's true. Otherwise, you may one day come home and find your barrel empty and your well polluted.
17 Your spring water is for you and you only, not to be passed around among strangers.
18 Bless your fresh-flowing fountain! Enjoy the wife you married as a young man!
19 Lovely as an angel, beautiful as a rose - don't ever quit taking delight in her body. Never take her love for granted!
20 Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

Proverbs 5:15-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PROVERBS 5

The general instruction of this chapter is to avoid whoredom, and make use of lawful marriage, and keep to that. It is introduced with an exhortation to attend to wisdom and understanding, Pr 5:1,2; one part of which lies in shunning an adulterous woman; who is described by her flattery, with which she deceives; by the end she brings men to, which is destruction and death; and by the uncertainty of her ways, which cannot be known, Pr 5:3-6. Wherefore men are advised to keep at the utmost distance from her, Pr 5:7,8; lest their honour, strength, wealth, and labours, be given to others, Pr 5:9,10; and repentance and mourning follow, when too late, Pr 5:11-14. And, as a remedy against whoredom, entering into a marriage state is advised to, and a strict regard to that; allegorically expressed by a man's drinking water out of his fountain, and by his wife being as a loving hind and pleasant roe to him, the single object of his affections, Pr 5:15-19. As also the consideration of the divine omniscience is proposed, to deter him from the sin of adultery, Pr 5:20,21; as well as the inevitable ruin wicked men are brought into by it, Pr 5:22,23.

Published by permission. Originally published by NavPress in English as THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright 2002 by Eugene Peterson. All rights reserved.