For the levy of the prostitute is poverty, and the adulteress preys upon your very life.
Parallel translations
- WEB For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life.
- KJV For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
- NKJV For by means of a harlot A man is reduced to a crust of bread; And an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.
- NASB For the price of a prostitute reduces one to a loaf of bread, And an adulteress hunts for a precious life.
- NLT For a prostitute will bring you to poverty, but sleeping with another man’s wife will cost you your life.
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
Immorality is costly: it can reduce a man to poverty and hunt down his very life. Sexual sin exacts a devastating price.
Overview
The verse contrasts the impoverishing cost of involvement with a prostitute and the deadly pursuit of the adulteress. While some details of the comparison are debated, the clear point is the ruinous toll of sexual sin on a person's resources and life itself. It sets up the warnings of certain judgment that follow.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Luke 15:30But when this son of yours returns from squandering your wealth with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
- Prov 29:3A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.
- 1 Sam 2:36And everyone left in your house will come and bow down to him for a piece of silver or a morsel of bread, pleading, “Please appoint me to some priestly office so that I can eat a piece of bread.”’”
- Gen 39:14she called her household servants. “Look,” she said, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. He came to me so he could sleep with me, but I screamed as loud as I could.
- Ezek 13:18and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: Woe to the women who sew magic charms on their wrists and make veils for the heads of people of every height, in order to ensnare their souls. Will you ensnare the souls of My people but preserve your own?
- Luke 15:13–15After a few days, the younger son got everything together and journeyed to a distant country, where he squandered his wealth in wild living.
- Prov 5:10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.
- Ezek 13:8Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: Because you have uttered vain words and seen false visions, I am against you, declares the Lord GOD.
- Prov 29:8Mockers inflame a city, but the wise turn away anger.
- Prov 7:23until an arrow pierces his liver, like a bird darting into a snare—not knowing it will cost him his life.
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 6:26 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.