Proverbs 5 — The outsider's lure and fidelity to one's own wife — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: H 5:3, H 5:5, H 5:16, H 5:19, H 5:23
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Proverbs 5 — The outsider's lure and fidelity to one's own wife
5:1–5:6 — Wisdom and the perilous path
Verse H 5:1 Similar
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:1
My son, attend to my wisdom;
incline your ear to my understanding,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:1
Son, attend to my wisdom,
and incline your ear to my words,
Comparison and reception
Similar. Text: Both open with a paternal appeal to attend. H names understanding; G names the speaker's words.
Verse H 5:2 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:2
to guard discretion,
and let your lips preserve knowledge.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:2
so that you may guard good understanding.
I command you to heed the discernment of my lips.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H makes the son's lips preserve knowledge; G makes the speaker command the discernment of his own lips. G adds good; heed supplies the English relation to the commanded discernment.
Verse H 5:3 Disparate
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:3
For an outsider woman's lips drip honey,
and her palate is smoother than oil,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:3
Do not attend to a base woman,
for honey drips from a prostitute's lips;
for a time she oils your throat.
Comparison and reception
Disparate. Text: G adds an explicit prohibition, identifies the woman as a prostitute and makes her smooth the addressee's throat. H describes the woman's own smooth palate. H zarah, outsider or strange woman, need not establish foreign ethnicity; the subsequent marital setting informs the warning.
Verse H 5:4 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:4
but her end is bitter as wormwood,
sharp as a two-edged sword.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:4
Afterward, however, you will find it more bitter than gall
and sharper than a two-edged blade.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H compares her end to wormwood; G uses gall, comparative degrees and explicit second-person discovery. Neither plant/substance is replaced by the other.
Verse H 5:5 Disparate
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:5
Her feet descend to death;
her steps take hold of Sheol.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:5
For folly's feet lead those who engage with her
down with death into Hades;
her tracks are not firmly set.
Comparison and reception
Disparate. Text: G expressly makes folly the possessor of the feet and supplies those engaging with her as their victims, then denies that her tracks are secure. H predicates descent and taking hold of the woman's own feet and steps.
Verse H 5:6 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:6
She gives no thought to the path of life;
her tracks wander, and she does not know.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:6
For she does not travel life's ways;
her tracks are slippery and not easy to recognize.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H's pen construction is literally lest she/you weigh or level life's path. The negative sense and third-person feminine subject are provisional; second-person address remains possible because the form is ambiguous. H's closing verb likewise permits she does not know or you do not know. G clearly describes her ways as unstable and hard to discern.
5:7–5:14 — The loss and the belated confession
Verse H 5:7 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:7
Now, sons, listen to me,
and do not turn from the sayings of my mouth.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:7
Now therefore, son, listen to me,
and do not make my words ineffective.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H addresses plural sons and forbids departure. G addresses one son and forbids nullifying the words.
Verse H 5:8 Similar
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:8
Keep your way far from her,
and do not approach the entrance of her house,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:8
Put your way far from her;
do not approach the doors of her houses,
Comparison and reception
Similar. Text: The warning agrees; G has plural houses and doors against H's singular house entrance.
Verse H 5:9 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:9
lest you give your splendor to others
and your years to a cruel one,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:9
so that you do not surrender your life to others
and your livelihood to the merciless,
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H has splendor, years and a singular cruel recipient; G has life, bios and plural merciless people. Bios can denote life or means of living; livelihood retains the likely practical distinction without claiming a separate Greek money noun.
Verse H 5:10 Similar
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:10
lest strangers be filled with your strength,
and your hard-earned gains be in an outsider's house,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:10
so that outsiders are not filled with your strength,
and your labors enter outsiders' houses,
Comparison and reception
Similar. Text: The loss of strength and labor agrees. H uses a singular outsider's house and an implicit final relation; G makes entry into plural houses explicit.
Verse H 5:11 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:11
and you groan at your end,
when your flesh and your body are consumed,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:11
and you come to regret it at the end,
when the flesh of your body is worn away,
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H names groaning and pairs flesh with bodily substance; G names regret and has the flesh of the body. The warning does not name a particular disease.
Verse H 5:12 Similar
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:12
and say, “How I hated discipline!
My heart despised correction.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:12
and say, “How I hated discipline!
My heart turned aside from rebukes.
Comparison and reception
Similar. Text: The retrospective confession corresponds; despising and turning aside retain distinct verbal emphasis.
Verse H 5:13 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:13
I did not listen to my instructors' voice
or incline my ear to my teachers.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:13
I did not listen to the voice of the one disciplining and teaching me,
nor incline my ear.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H identifies plural instructors and teachers. G uses singular participles, naturally one instructor performing both actions, and leaves the final ear clause without H's repeated teacher object.
Verse H 5:14 Same
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:14
I was nearly in every kind of evil
in the midst of the congregation and assembly.”
Greek–English (G)
G 5:14
I was nearly in every kind of evil
in the midst of the assembly and congregation.”
Comparison and reception
Same. Text: Both confess proximity to comprehensive evil within the gathered community. Evil can concern wrongdoing or its calamity; the wording does not force a technical judicial sentence.
5:15–5:20 — One's own water and one's own wife
Verse H 5:15 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:15
Drink water from your cistern,
flowing water from within your well.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:15
Drink waters from your vessels
and from your spring wells.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H names a cistern and the flowing water within a well. G has plural vessels and wells belonging to a spring. The water metaphor is preserved before the explicit reference to one's wife.
Verse H 5:16 Disparate
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:16
Should your springs scatter outside,
streams of water in the squares?
Greek–English (G)
G 5:16
Do not let waters overflow for you from your spring;
but let your waters travel into your own squares.
Comparison and reception
Disparate. Text: H's unmarked imperfect can be read as a question, statement or wish; the question is provisional in the exclusive-water context. G explicitly prohibits overflowing in its first clause but positively commands passage into your own squares in the second. It is not simplified into a blanket prohibition on outward flow.
Verse H 5:17 Same
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:17
Let them be yours alone,
with no strangers sharing them with you.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:17
Let them belong to you alone,
and let no outsider share with you.
Comparison and reception
Same. Text: The exclusive possession and prohibition on outsider participation correspond.
Verse H 5:18 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:18
Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
Greek–English (G)
G 5:18
Let your fountain of water be your own,
and share joy with the wife of your youth.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H blesses the fountain; G asserts its private belonging and explicitly names water. Both proceed to joy with the wife of one's youth.
Verse H 5:19 Disparate
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:19
a loving doe and a graceful mountain goat.
Let her breasts satisfy you at every time;
be always enraptured in her love.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:19
Let a deer of affection and a colt of your graces keep company with you.
Let your own woman lead you and be with you at every time,
for as you move in the company of her affection, you will be one among many.
Comparison and reception
Disparate. Text: H preserves the doe/mountain-goat pair, breasts and the intoxication or wandering image of sh-gh-h. G has deer/colt, companionship, the woman's leading and the difficult final pollostos ese. ‘One among many’ is a close provisional rendering of that ordinal expression; its implication is unresolved and no explicit children are supplied. G's added clauses do not contain H's breasts. Woman supplies the feminine substantive ‘one's own’ in the marital context.
Verse H 5:20 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:20
Why, my son, be enraptured with an outsider woman
and embrace a stranger's bosom?
Greek–English (G)
G 5:20
Do not be much involved with another woman,
nor be held in the arms of one who is not your own.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H asks why the son should be enraptured and embrace. G directly prohibits being polys toward another and being held in her arms; ‘much involved’ is provisional for the compressed adjective construction. G omits my son.
5:21–5:23 — God's sight and the cords of sin
Verse H 5:21 Similar
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:21
For a man's ways are before YHWH's eyes,
and He weighs all his tracks.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:21
For a man's ways are before God's eyes,
and He watches all his tracks.
Comparison and reception
Similar. Text: H names YHWH and uses the weighing/leveling verb; G names God and expressly describes observation. Weighs is contextual assessment here, not a modern measuring procedure.
Verse H 5:22 Different
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:22
His iniquities capture him—the wicked man;
he is held by the cords of his sin.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:22
Lawless acts hunt a man,
and each is bound tight by the cords of his own sins.
Comparison and reception
Different. Text: H identifies the wicked man and his iniquities; G has a man and distributive each, with explicit own sins. Both retain culpability as the binding force.
Verse H 5:23 Disparate
Hebrew–English (H)
H 5:23
He dies for lack of discipline;
in the abundance of his folly he goes astray.
Greek–English (G)
G 5:23
He dies among the undisciplined;
from the abundance of his own life he was cast out
and perished through folly.
Comparison and reception
Disparate. Text: H describes absence of discipline and wandering in great folly. G makes the undisciplined companions at death, adds expulsion from abundant life and explicit destruction through folly. Its shift from present dies to past was cast out/perished is retained.