Proverbs 5:9-11

5:9 lest you give your vigor ¹  to others

and your years to a cruel person,

5:10 lest strangers devour ²  your strength, ³ 

and your labor ⁴  benefit ⁵  another man’s house.

5:11 And at the end of your life ⁶  you will groan ⁷ 

when your flesh and your body are wasted away. ⁸ 

Proverbs 7:26-27

7:26 for she has brought down ⁹  many fatally wounded,

and all those she has slain are many. ¹⁰ 

7:27 Her house is the way to the grave, ¹¹ 

going down ¹²  to the chambers ¹³  of death.

Hosea 4:11

Judgment of Pagan Idolatry and Cultic Prostitution

4:11 Old and new wine

take away the understanding of my people. ¹⁴ 

[5:9]  ¹ sn The term הוֹד (hod, “vigor; splendor; majesty”) in this context means the best time of one’s life (cf. NIV “your best strength”), the full manly vigor that will be wasted with licentiousness. Here it is paralleled by “years,” which refers to the best years of that vigor, the prime of life. Life would be ruined by living this way, or the revenge of the woman’s husband would cut it short.

[5:10]  ² tn Or “are sated, satisfied.”

[5:10]  ³ tn The word כֹּחַ (coakh, “strength”) refers to what laborious toil would produce (so a metonymy of cause). Everything that this person worked for could become the property for others to enjoy.

[5:10]  ⁴ tn “labor, painful toil.”

[5:10]  ⁵ tn The term “benefit” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.

[5:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “at your end.”

[5:11]  ⁷ tn The form is the perfect tense with the vav consecutive; it is equal to a specific future within this context.

[5:11]  ⁸ tn Heb “in the finishing of your flesh and your body.” The construction uses the Qal infinitive construct of כָּלָה (calah) in a temporal clause; the verb means “be complete, at an end, finished, spent.”

[7:26]  ⁹ tn Heb “she has caused to fall.”

[7:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “numerous” (so NAB, NASB, NRSV, NLT) or “countless.”

[7:27]  ¹¹ tn The noun “Sheol” in parallelism to “the chambers of death” probably means the grave. The noun is a genitive of location, indicating the goal of the road(s). Her house is not the grave; it is, however, the sure way to it.

[7:27]  ¹² tn The Qal active participle modifies “ways” to Sheol. The “road,” as it were, descends to the place of death.

[7:27]  ¹³ tn “Chambers” is a hypocatastasis, comparing the place of death or the grave with a bedroom in the house. It plays on the subtlety of the temptation. Cf. NLT “Her bedroom is the den of death.”

[4:11]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “take away the heart of my people.” The present translation assumes that the first word of v. 12 in the Hebrew text is to be construed with the noun at the end of v. 11 (so also TEV, CEV, NLT).