Proverbs 6:20-35

Warning against Adultery

20 My son, keep your father's command, and don't reject your mother's teaching.^[a]

21 Always bind them to your heart; tie them around your neck.^[b]

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,^[c] and corrective instructions are the way to life.^[d]

24 They will protect you from an evil woman,^[e] from the flattering^[f] tongue of a stranger.^[g]

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,^[h] but an adulteress^[i] goes after [your] very life.^[j]

27 Can a man embrace fire^[k] 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.

30 People don't despise the thief if he steals to satisfy himself when he is hungry.

31 Still, if caught, he must pay seven times as much; he must give up all the wealth in his house.^[l]

32 The one who commits adultery^[m] lacks sense; whoever does so destroys himself.

33 He will get a beating^[n] and dishonor, and his disgrace will never be removed.

34 For jealousy enrages a husband, and he will show no mercy when he takes revenge.^[o]

35 He will not be appeased by anything or be persuaded by lavish gifts.

Proverbs 6:20-35 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

• [a]. Pr 1:8; 31:1
• [b]. Pr 1:9; 3:3; 7:3
• [c]. Ps 119:105
• [d]. Pr 3:1-2; 4:4; 7:2; 19:16
• [e]. LXX reads from a married woman
• [f]. Lit smooth
• [g]. Pr 7:5
• [h]. Or On account of a prostitute, [one is left with] only a loaf of bread
• [i]. Lit but a wife of a man
• [j]. Pr 2:18-19; 7:21-23,27; 23:27-28
• [k]. Lit man take fire to his bosom
• [l]. Sg 8:7
• [m]. Lit commits adultery with a woman
• [n]. Or plague
• [o]. Pr 27:4