Proverbs 5:15–23

²Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

³Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.

⁴The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.

⁵Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.

⁴Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

¹⁸Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

¹⁹Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

³Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house: thy children like olive plants round about thy table.

³Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.

²⁸Israel then shall dwell in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.

⁶⁰And they blessed Rebekah, and said unto her, Thou art our sister, be thou the mother of thousands of millions, and let thy seed possess the gate of those which hate them.

²¹And they thirsted not when he led them through the deserts: he caused the waters to flow out of the rock for them: he clave the rock also, and the waters gushed out.

⁹And he had thirty sons, and thirty daughters, whom he sent abroad, and took in thirty daughters from abroad for his sons. And he judged Israel seven years.

²⁶Bless ye God in the congregations, even the Lord, from the fountain of Israel.

⁹Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.

¹⁴¶ Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.

¹⁵And did not he make one? Yet had he the residue of the spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth.

¹⁵A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon.

¹²A garden inclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed.

³Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins.

⁹My beloved is like a roe or a young hart: behold, he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, shewing himself through the lattice.

⁵Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies.

¹⁴¶ Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices.

¹⁵¶ Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

¹⁷Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young hart upon the mountains of Bether.

⁴And there came a traveller unto the rich man, and he spared to take of his own flock and of his own herd, to dress for the wayfaring man that was come unto him; but took the poor man’s lamb, and dressed it for the man that was come to him.

²⁴To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman.

⁵That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.

¹BUT king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;

¹⁴The mouth of strange women is a deep pit: he that is abhorred of the Lord shall fall therein.

²⁷For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit.

²⁸She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men.

³³Thine eyes shall behold strange women, and thine heart shall utter perverse things.

¹⁶To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;

¹⁷Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

¹⁸For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.

¹⁹None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

¹³Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

³The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.

¹⁹Great in counsel, and mighty in work: for thine eyes are open upon all the ways of the sons of men: to give every one according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings:

²¹For his eyes are upon the ways of man, and he seeth all his goings.

²And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness: now their own doings have beset them about; they are before my face.

¹⁷For mine eyes are upon all their ways: they are not hid from my face, neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.

²⁴Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.

⁴The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven: his eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.

⁴Doth not he see my ways, and count all my steps?

¹⁶⁸I have kept thy precepts and thy testimonies: for all my ways are before thee.

⁹For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly: therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.

¹⁰I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

¹⁶For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?

¹O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.

²Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off.

³Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with all my ways.

⁴For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether.

⁵Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

⁷Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

⁸If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

⁹If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;

¹⁰Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

¹¹If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me.

¹²Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

³Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.

²³And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.

¹⁸And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;

³¹Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

³²For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

⁵The righteousness of the perfect shall direct his way: but the wicked shall fall by his own wickedness.

⁵For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

⁶Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

¹¹Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the heart.

¹²¶ My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them: for the spirit of whoredoms hath caused them to err, and they have gone a whoring from under their God.

¹³They sacrifice upon the tops of the mountains, and burn incense upon the hills, under oaks and poplars and elms, because the shadow thereof is good: therefore your daughters shall commit whoredom, and your spouses shall commit adultery.

¹⁴I will not punish your daughters when they commit whoredom, nor your spouses when they commit adultery: for themselves are separated with whores, and they sacrifice with harlots: therefore the people that doth not understand shall fall.

²³But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord: and be sure your sin will find you out.

¹⁸And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

¹⁵The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid is their own foot taken.

⁹I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:

¹⁰Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.

²⁶And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands: whoso pleaseth God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

¹⁹Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,

²⁰Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,

²¹Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

⁷Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

⁸For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.

⁴Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.

¹⁹Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord God of hosts.

³The integrity of the upright shall guide them: but the perverseness of transgressors shall destroy them.

¹⁵He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.

¹⁶His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.

¹²But if they obey not, they shall perish by the sword, and they shall die without knowledge.

²¹Doth not their excellency which is in them go away? they die, even without wisdom.

¹⁵Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;

¹⁶But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.

¹⁷These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.

¹⁸For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.

¹⁹While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

²⁰For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

²¹For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.

²²But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.

²¹The lips of the righteous feed many: but fools die for want of wisdom.

³²The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.

¹⁴The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man shall be satisfied from himself.

¹²So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.