Drink water from your own well— share your love only with your wife.
Parallel translations
- WEB Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
- KJV Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
- BSB Drink water from your own cistern, and running water from your own well.
- NKJV Drink water from your own cistern, And running water from your own well.
- NASB ¶Drink water from your own cistern, And fresh water from your own well.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Drink water from your own cistern and well. Find satisfaction in your own marriage rather than straying.
Overview
Turning from warning to positive counsel, the father uses the imagery of one's own cistern and well to commend faithful love within marriage. The remedy for the lure of immorality is delight in one's own spouse. This affirms the goodness of marital intimacy as God's gracious provision (Gen 2:24; Heb 13:4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- 1 Cor 7:2–5But, because of sexual immoralities, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband.
- Heb 13:4Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
- Prov 5:18–19Let your spring be blessed. Rejoice in the wife of your youth.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Wisdom personified, with God before creation and the agent of all things, anticipates Christ 'in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom' — the wisdom of God made flesh.
How Proverbs 5:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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