Neville Goddard on Proverbs 5:1-23 - Mystical Bible Interpretation

Read Proverbs 5 in context

Scripture Focus

1My son, attend unto my wisdom, and bow thine ear to my understanding:

2That thou mayest regard discretion, and that thy lips may keep knowledge.

3For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:

4But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

5Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell.

6Lest thou shouldest ponder the path of life, her ways are moveable, that thou canst not know them.

7Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.

8Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

9Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

10Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

11And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

12And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

13And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

14I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

15Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

17Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.

18Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

19Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

20And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

21For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

22His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

23He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

Proverbs 5:1-23

Biblical Context

Attend to wisdom and guard your life by avoiding seductive distractions. Faithfulness to your own state prevents ruin and inner poverty.

Neville's Inner Vision

Notice how the inner man, in your present awareness, is called to discipline his attention as a husband guards his cistern. The 'strange woman' is not a person but a vivid project of desire invading the consciousness. When you identify with her, you drink from a well that does not belong to you, and your energy flows outward to imagined strangers, draining the life from your inner realm. God watches the roads of your mind; every choice is an image you project and sustain in awareness. The remedy is simple: withdraw your assent from wandering thoughts and return to the living water of your own state—the I AM you already are. Keep your attention on your 'own' fountain, and permit no external drama to redraw your identity. In practice, the command to 'drink waters out of thine own cistern' becomes an act of self-possession: consciously affirm that your vitality is reserved for the life you are building in your own consciousness and in the loyalty of your inner covenant. By recognizing your inner union with your 'wife of thy youth' as the reality to cherish, you feel ravished by truth, not by illusion.

Practice This Now

Imaginative act: Close the door on wandering thoughts for a moment and imagine your awareness as a cistern, filled with living waters, reserved for your true state. Rehearse the feeling of allegiance, envisioning the 'wife of thy youth' as your present consciousness and abide there until it becomes your immediate sensation.