Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, Do not stray into her paths;
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t let your heart turn to her ways. Don’t go astray in her paths,
- KJV Let not thine heart decline to her ways, go not astray in her paths.
- BSB Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways; do not stray into her paths.
- NASB Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, Do not stray into her paths.
- NLT Don’t let your hearts stray away toward her. Don’t wander down her wayward path.
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
Do not let your heart drift toward her ways or wander into her paths. Guard the heart against the first steps of temptation.
Overview
The father warns against even an inclination of the heart toward the seductress, let alone walking in her ways. The battle is won or lost first within. This echoes the consistent biblical teaching that sin must be resisted at the level of desire and intention.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Prov 5:8Remove your way far from her. Don’t come near the door of her house,
- Prov 6:25Don’t lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her captivate you with her eyelids.
- Isa 53:6All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and Yahweh has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
- Matt 5:28but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
- Prov 4:14–15Don’t enter into the path of the wicked. Don’t walk in the way of evil men.
- Ps 119:176I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I don’t forget your commandments.
- Prov 5:23He will die for lack of instruction. In the greatness of his folly, he will go astray.
- Prov 23:31–33Don’t look at the wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly.
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 7:25 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.