My son, pay attention to my wisdom; Lend your ear to my understanding,
Parallel translations
- WEB My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my understanding:
- KJV My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:
- BSB My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my insight,
- NASB My son, pay attention to my wisdom, Incline your ear to my understanding,
- NLT My son, pay attention to my wisdom; listen carefully to my wise counsel.
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
The son is called to attend to his father's wisdom and understanding. Careful listening prepares one to resist temptation.
Overview
Chapter 5 opens a sustained warning against sexual immorality, beginning with the familiar appeal to heed wisdom. The placement is deliberate: only one grounded in wisdom will withstand the seductions to come. Such attentiveness to godly instruction is the first defense against sin's allurements.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Prov 22:17Turn your ear, and listen to the words of the wise. Apply your heart to my teaching.
- Rev 2:11He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. He who overcomes won’t be harmed by the second death.
- Prov 4:20My son, attend to my words. Turn your ear to my sayings.
- Prov 2:1My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you;
- Rev 3:13He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
- Rev 2:17He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes, to him I will give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows but he who receives it.
- Mark 4:23If any man has ears to hear, let him hear.”
- Jas 1:19So, then, my beloved brothers, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to anger;
- Prov 4:1Listen, sons, to a father’s instruction. Pay attention and know understanding;
- Rev 2:29He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
- Rev 2:7He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of my God.
- Rev 3:6He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.
- Matt 3:9Don’t think to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I tell you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
- Rev 3:22He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 5:1 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
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.