I’m teaching our congregation’s men’s Sunday School class this month. The first part of this Sunday’s lesson is based on Proverbs 5:15-18. I’ve pasted in below the rough first draft of my verse-by-verse observations. (The stuff in Spanish is from the Reina-Valera 1960 version of the Bible. Beneath any such usage you will find my translation to English.)

“Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well” (Proverbs 5:15).

• Take only that which is yours.
• Do not drink in sights and experiences which are not yours — not “out there,” not in your house, not on your digital device, not “in here” (tap head).

“Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets” (Proverbs 5:16).

• I do not know what to do with this verse, because the meaning changes when I switch to my other language. It becomes a question!
• “¿Se derramarán tus fuentes por las calles, Y tus corrientes de aguas por las plazas?”
• “Shall your fountains be poured out through the streets, And your currents of waters through the public parks?”
• Don’t take your sexuality into the public domain.
• Don’t make a public display of your sexual vigor, drive, or need.
• Picture having a treasured supply of pure water, reserved for a special purpose. What would compel you to waste it?
• Don’t do that with your sexual vigor, drive, or need.

“Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee” (Proverbs 5:17).

• A stranger here is not just someone you don’t know.
• It’s anyone you don’t have a right to know sexually.
• Do not share or display your sexual vigor, drive, or need with anyone who has no right to it.
• Guard your own purity.
• Guard another’s purity as well.

“Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth” (Proverbs 5:18).

• A blessed fountain is a treasured fountain, an honored fountain.
• God gave you your sexual vigor, drive, and need as an honored treasure.
• Value it that way; treat it way.
• Do that, and you will find genuine pleasure and joy in life.
• Do not hold your sexual vigor, drive, or need in such low regard that you expend it in a wasteful, unholy manner with someone who is not your own sexually.
• Find your joy and pleasure in your own spouse.
• Keep your spouse as the object of your sexuality, but not as a mere sex object.
• And if you don’t have a spouse, well, that facet of this subject is beyond the scope of my focus here.

Guys, if the girl isn’t your wife, keep your hands off. Gals, if the fellow isn’t your husband, keep your hands off. (And his as well!) Kissing, holding, handling, hugging, fondling, cuddling… (Read the rest here: Defraud Not.)

A few years back I wrote this for the Sunday School lesson for October 4, 2009: Safeguarding Moral Purity.

(Our congregation uses the Sunday School material produced by Christian Light Publications. They titled their youth/adult lesson “Safeguarding Moral Purity.”)