Proverbs 5:10

lest strangers devour ¹  your strength, ²  and your labor ³  benefit ⁴  another man’s house.

lest strangers feast on your wealth and your toil enrich another man’s house.

And strangers will be filled with your strength And your hard-earned goods will go to the house of an alien;

Strangers will obtain your wealth, and someone else will enjoy the fruit of your labor.

Why should you allow strangers to take advantage of you? Why be exploited by those who care nothing for you?

And strange men may be full of your wealth, and the fruit of your work go to the house of others;

and strangers will take their fill of your wealth, and your labors will go to the house of an alien;

Lest aliens be filled with your wealth, And your labors go to the house of a foreigner;

lest strangers devour ¹  your strength, ²  and your labor ³  benefit ⁴  another man’s house.

¹ tn Or “are sated, satisfied.”

² 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.

³ tn “labor, painful toil.”

⁴ tn The term “benefit” does not appear in the Hebrew text, but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity and smoothness.