Proverbs 5:20 is a warning against letting your affections be drawn toward someone who is not your spouse, especially in the area of sexual temptation. Solomon, speaking as a father, urges his son to see that infidelity is a foolish trap rather than a harmless pleasure.
The father addresses his son directly, with the tender word “my son,” and the instruction is pastoral rather than harsh. He is writing in the wisdom tradition of ancient Israel, where a parent’s counsel was meant to shape a young person’s choices for a whole lifetime.
For why should you, my son, be captivated with an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another?
Proverbs 5:20 (WEB)
What Proverbs 5:20 Means
The first question, “why should you be captivated with an adulteress,” asks the son to consider what he gains. The word “captivated” pictures someone who has been caught and is no longer free to walk away, so the verse describes desire that has grown into a kind of bondage. The question is meant to make the son stop and reason with himself rather than simply follow his appetite.
The second question, “why embrace the bosom of another,” uses the image of physical closeness to name what belongs only within marriage. Proverbs does not treat this as a small matter of etiquette. It presents the pull toward another person’s spouse as a path that ends in ruin, a theme the surrounding chapter develops at length.
The verse does not promise that avoiding temptation will make life easy or that a faithful marriage will never face difficulty. What it offers is a clear and reasoned challenge: choose the good, lasting joy of your own household over a short and costly thrill.
The Context of Proverbs 5:20
The book of Proverbs is a collection of sayings traditionally attributed to Solomon, and it is written as a guide for young men who are learning how to live wisely before God. Chapters 1 through 9 open with a series of speeches from a father to his son, and chapter 5 falls within that instruction. The intended audience is a young man who is being tempted, and the book speaks to him as someone who can still choose his direction.
Just before verse 20, the passage calls the son to rejoice in the wife of his youth and to let her love satisfy him. Just after, it says that God sees every path a person takes and that the wicked are trapped by their own sin. Read in that setting, the verse is not an isolated rule but part of a larger picture in which faithfulness to one’s own spouse is tied to honoring the Lord, who watches over all of life.
Key Phrases in Proverbs 5:20
Matthew 5:28
But I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.
(WEB)
Jesus teaches that lust begins in the heart long before it becomes an act, which helps explain why Proverbs warns about captivation rather than only about the final deed. Reading the two passages together shows that guarding the inner life is part of faithfulness.
Hebrews 13:4
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
(WEB)
This verse honors marriage as something God holds in high regard and speaks plainly about sexual faithfulness. It reinforces the same conviction that Proverbs 5:20 expresses in its vivid, father-to-son language.
A Short Prayer From Proverbs 5:20
Lord, you see every path I take and you know the desires that rise in my heart. Where I have been drawn toward what is not mine to hold, forgive me and turn my affections back toward you. Give me wisdom to recognize temptation early, courage to walk away from it, and the humility to ask others for help. Strengthen the faithfulness of my marriage and my own heart, and let my love be pure and steady. Amen.
