Proverbs 5:20

But why should you be captivated, ¹  my son, by an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of a different woman? ² 

Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress? Why embrace the bosom of another man’s wife?

For why should you, my son, be exhilarated with an adulteress And embrace the bosom of a foreigner?

Why be captivated, my son, with an immoral woman, or embrace the breasts of an adulterous woman?

Why would you trade enduring intimacies for cheap thrills with a whore? for dalliance with a promiscuous stranger?

Why let yourself, my son, go out of the way with a strange woman, and take another woman in your arms?

Why should you be intoxicated, my son, by another woman and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?

For why should you, my son, be enraptured by an immoral woman, And be embraced in the arms of a seductress?

But why should you be captivated, ¹  my son, by an adulteress, and embrace the bosom of a different woman? ² 

¹ tn In the interrogative clause the imperfect has a deliberative nuance.

² tn Heb “foreigner” (so ASV, NASB), but this does not mean that the woman is non-Israelite. This term describes a woman who is outside the moral boundaries of the covenant community – she is another man’s wife, but since she acts with moral abandonment she is called “foreign.”