Proverbs 5:1-16: a reflection

1My son, pay attention to my wisdom. Turn your ear to my understanding, 2that you may maintain discretion, that your lips may preserve knowledge. 3For the lips of an adulteress drip honey. Her mouth is smoother than oil, 4but in the end she is as bitter as wormwood, and as sharp as a two-edged sword. 5Her feet go down to death. Her steps lead straight to Sheol. 6She gives no thought to the way of life. Her ways are crooked, and she doesn’t know it. 7Now therefore, my sons, listen to me. Don’t depart from the words of my mouth. 8Remove your way far from her. Don’t come near the door of her house, 9lest you give your honor to others, and your years to the cruel one; 10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich another man’s house. 11You will groan at your latter end, when your flesh and your body are consumed, 12and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof. 13I haven’t obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor turned my ear to those who instructed me! 14I have come to the brink of utter ruin, among the gathered assembly.” 15Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well. 16Should your springs overflow in the streets, streams of water in the public squares?

This chapter warns against a path that looks sweet but ends bitter, and at its center is a picture of a person looking back in ruin, filled with regret. At the end of your life, the warning goes, you will groan and say: How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! I did not listen to my teachers or incline my ear to my instructors. I am at the brink of utter ruin. It is the bitter regret of someone who had correction offered and refused it, until it was too late.

Notice the specific regret named: how I hated discipline; my heart despised reproof. The person's ruin came not from a lack of warnings but from refusing them, from despising the correction and instruction that could have kept them from disaster. They had teachers, they had reproof, they had guidance, and they rejected it all, and now, at the end, they see what their contempt for correction cost them. The regret is not that no one warned them, but that they would not listen.

That is a sobering picture, meant to move us to heed correction now, before regret. It is easy to despise reproof, to resent correction, to brush off the instruction and warnings that come our way, especially when they cross what we want to do. But the person in this chapter shows where that leads: to a ruin looked back on with the bitterest regret, how I hated discipline. Do not wait for hindsight to teach you the value of correction. Heed the reproof and instruction offered to you now, while it can still keep you from ruin, so that you are not left, at the end, groaning over the correction you despised.

Lord, your word pictures the bitter regret of one who despised correction until ruin came: how I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof! Keep me from that regret. When correction, reproof, and instruction come to me, especially when they cross what I want, help me not to resent and brush them off, but to heed them now, while they can still keep me from ruin. Give me a heart that values discipline and welcomes reproof, before hindsight teaches me its worth too late.