Proverbs 2:17-22: in context

This passage is part of a warning in Proverbs about the seductions that lead a person off the path of life. It describes one who has forsaken the companion of her youth and forgotten the covenant of her God, whose house sinks down to death and whose paths lead to the departed; none who go to her return or find again the paths of life. And it sets against this the alternative: therefore walk in the way of good people and keep to the paths of the righteous, for the upright will dwell in the land, but the treacherous will be rooted out of it.

Two phrases sit at the heart of the warning: forsaking the companion of one's youth, and forgetting the covenant of one's God. The passage joins them, and the joining is telling, for the two failures are of a piece: the abandoning of early bonds and the breaking of faith with God are the same kind of unfaithfulness. To forsake the companion of one's youth is to abandon a commitment made early and meant to be kept, to break faith with a bond that was supposed to last. And to forget the covenant of one's God is the same betrayal turned toward heaven, the abandoning of promises made to God, the drifting away from a commitment once sworn. Proverbs sees these as related, and warns that the path of such unfaithfulness leads down, to death, with no return. There is a searching word in it about faithfulness to our commitments, both to people and to God. It is possible to drift away from bonds we once held sacred, to forsake companions and forget covenants, letting early commitments quietly lapse as newer attractions pull us; and the passage warns that this way of unfaithfulness is a path down, not up. The alternative it offers is to walk in the way of the faithful, keeping the paths of the righteous, holding to our commitments rather than forsaking them. Keeping faith, with the companions of our lives and with the God to whom we made our vows, is the way that leads to life; forsaking and forgetting is the way that leads down.

Am I keeping faith with the commitments I made early, to people and to God, or am I quietly forsaking companions and forgetting covenants, letting early bonds lapse as newer attractions pull me down a path that does not lead to life?