Bible Strands
Proverbs 5:23
He dies for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The wisdom teacher addresses a young man in Proverbs 5, concluding a warning about sexual immorality by describing the final outcome for the unrepentant.
The words — The text highlights מוּסָר (mu.Sar), meaning discipline, and יָמוּת (Ya.mut), meaning he will die. These terms frame the verse’s core claim that death results from rejecting correction.
The thread — This trajectory of dying from ignoring correction appears in Job 4:21 and Job 36:12, where unheeded warnings lead to perishing. The New Testament echoes this pattern in 2 Peter 2:15, noting those who wander from the straight path follow a destructive course.
Why it lands — The verse demands recognition that rejecting discipline and embracing personal folly actively produces one’s own destruction. It requires the reader to choose correction now to avoid the stated outcome.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.
Cross-references
- Job 36:12 But if they do not obey, then they perish by the sword and die without knowledge.
- Job 4:21 Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
- 2 Peter 2:15 They have left the straight way and wandered off to follow the way of Balaam son of Beor, who loved the wages of wickedness.
- Proverbs 10:21 The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of judgment.
- Proverbs 14:32 The wicked man is thrown down by his own sin, but the righteous man has a refuge even in death.
- Psalms 81:12 So I gave them up to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices.
- Proverbs 14:14 The backslider in heart receives the fill of his own ways, but a good man is rewarded for his ways.