My son, pay attention to my wisdom;
Lend your ear to my understanding,
That you may preserve discretion,
And your lips may keep knowledge.
For the lips of an immoral woman drip honey,
And her mouth is smoother than oil;
But in the end she is bitter as wormwood,
Sharp as a two-edged sword.
Her feet go down to death,
Her steps lay hold of hell.
Lest you ponder her path of life—
Her ways are unstable;
You do not know them.
Therefore hear me now, my children,
And do not depart from the words of my mouth.
Remove your way far from her,
And do not go near the door of her house,
Lest you give your honor to others,
And your years to the cruel one;
Lest aliens be filled with your wealth,
And your labors go to the house of a foreigner;
And you mourn at last,
When your flesh and your body are consumed,
And say:
“How I have hated instruction,
And my heart despised correction!
I have not obeyed the voice of my teachers,
Nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!
I was on the verge of total ruin,
In the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
Proverbs 5:1-14
Fathers talk straight to sons, especially about dangerous things. The immoral woman is sweet and smooth; she has honey on her tongue and convincing reasons in her mouth. But the outcome is the opposite: bitter and tragic, death and hell. Wisdom is knowing what to do in order to bring about a certain outcome. For people without it, such connections make no sense. How does a “fling” with an easy woman lead to a man losing honor, years to the cruel, his wealth to aliens, and suffering toil and regret? You would have to understand the way wealth is built in a household and passed on to generations of productive people who repeat the process. Solomon knows the way a household is established, and what happens if it is broken apart. Just in financial terms, global porn industry revenues were estimated to be from $58 billion to $287 billion in 2023. Instead of money spent on good, true, and beautiful things that edify people, it went toward the never-satisfied black hole of lust. That money and energy is not only wasted, it changes people, damages marriages, rips apart families, and destroys legacies. It commodifies and exploits people, including children who are featured in $3 billion of that revenue. That whole industry is a train wreck, and it’s only a slice of sexual immorality. Solomon says to stay far away from the immoral woman, not even to go near her door. This includes her digital door. It’s not something the wise mess around with.