Open in the app
Mid-century illustration of a tree planted by a pool of water on a path

Proverbs 7:5 · World English Bible

Proverbs 7:5 Meaning That They May Keep You From

that they may keep you from the strange woman, from the foreigner who flatters with her words.

Read it in the app

What does Proverbs 7:5 mean?

The stranger who flatters is the voice of the ego, promising the mind a completion it can only pretend to give. Her words are pleasant because temptation always dresses lack as fulfillment, offering the very separation that emptied the mind while calling it satisfaction.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 7:5 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The stranger who flatters is the voice of the ego, promising the mind a completion it can only pretend to give. Her words are pleasant because temptation always dresses lack as fulfillment, offering the very separation that emptied the mind while calling it satisfaction. She is called strange because this voice is foreign to what the mind truly is, though it has learned to sound familiar and kind.

What guards against her is not resistance but companionship with truth. A mind that keeps wisdom near recognizes the flattery for what it is and feels no pull toward it, because it is already full, and a full mind cannot be seduced by a promise to fill it.

Strange woman: the voice of the ego, foreign to the mind's true nature, promising a wholeness it can only imitate Stranger: the same tempting voice that flatters with pleasant words, dressing separation and lack as if they were fulfillment

Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app

Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 7:5 today

  1. When an ad, a feed, or a late-night cart whispers that one purchase will settle something in you, sit with it for a day without buying. See whether the wanting fades on its own.
  2. When someone lays on praise that feels a little too smooth, thank them warmly and keep your footing. You do not have to spend the rest of the conversation earning more of it.
  3. Under pressure, when a shortcut or a small compromise starts to look like relief, pause and ask what it is actually offering. Relief that costs you yourself is not relief.

What have I been told would complete me, that I do not actually need?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 46

There is no greater poverty than wanting, and no greater wealth than knowing you have enough. The craving, not the lack, is what empties you.

Buddhism · Second Noble Truth

Suffering grows out of thirst, the endless reaching for the next thing that promises to complete us. The promise is what hurts, not the missing thing.

Stoicism · Epictetus

Flattery and the craving for approval hand your peace to whoever is talking. What is already yours cannot be bought with pleasant words.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

Free · No account needed

Read all of Proverbs 7 through 17 lenses

Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.

Get Lensightful on the App Store