Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
Parallel translations
- WEB For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?
- KJV And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?
- NKJV For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?
- NASB For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress, And embrace the breasts of a foreigner?
- NLT Why be captivated, my son, by an immoral woman, or fondle the breasts of a promiscuous woman?
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
Why be captivated by an adulteress and embrace another's wife? Straying from one's spouse is folly when faithful love is available.
Overview
The father presses the question home: why be intoxicated by a forbidden woman when one has a wife to delight in? The contrast exposes the irrationality of adultery. This rhetorical appeal reinforces the call to contented faithfulness and warns against the senselessness of sin (cf. v. 19).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- Prov 6:24to keep you from the evil woman, from the smooth tongue of the adulteress.
- Prov 7:5that they may keep you from the adulteress, from the stranger with seductive words.
- Prov 23:27–28For a prostitute is a deep pit, and an adulteress is a narrow well.
- Prov 23:33Your eyes will see strange things, and your mind will utter perversities.
- 1 Kgs 11:1King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women.
- Prov 22:14The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; he who is under the wrath of the LORD will fall into it.
- Prov 2:16–19It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
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 5:20 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.