^3a…So he does not know that it will cost him his life. ²⁴Now therefore, my sons, listen to me, and pay attention to the words of my mouth. ²⁵Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, do not stray into her paths. ²⁶For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. ²⁷Her house is the way to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death.

The consequences of foolish living are so significant that the Holy Spirit inspired extensive teaching on the subject of sexual temptation. Depending on one’s perspective, the foolish person sees this as a salacious story, the reading of which stirs up lust. On the other hand, the wise person takes to heart the horrifying consequences of falling prey to the lure. God wants to drill home the importance. At the heart of this specific teaching about sensual enticement is the temptation to foolishness in the broader or more profound sense.

The ultimate fool is the one who knowingly puts himself in temptation’s way. It seems as though Solomon, who knows whereof he speaks, warns that the consequences are too grave to dismiss for the sake of short-term, uncontrolled fleshly pleasures. If he were writing today, we can imagine he would say, “I repeat again, and I will say it over and over. Don’t be stupidly foolish on this count.” Foolish decisions will come back to haunt a person with regret when he discovers the spiritual death they bring.

Of course, godly people may feel Solomon is belaboring this issue, but as one grows older, the sad reality is that many otherwise godly, spiritually minded believers eventually fall into choosing folly over wisdom—and regret it unrelentingly. God’s heart grieves to the degree that He inspired the book of Proverbs to camp out on this teaching. So, Solomon continues to elucidate the consequences with hyperbole, writing about the ultimate results of giving in to sin’s temptation.

We dare not theologically dice this too finely in an effort to wrestle with whether or not a Christian can lose his salvation due to grave sin, such as the one written about here—or we will miss the point. The point is that the consequences of sin are extremely serious and damaging to our souls. God uses the personification of the harlot as the metaphoric cloak of foolishness in order to shock us with the most pervasive of temptations and the one with the most devastating effects. The way of sin is the broad road to destruction. Jesus echoed this when He expanded this idea to the choice between living in sin in contrast to repenting and turning to God for salvation, between accepting God’s way of salvation or rejecting it:

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” (Matt. 7:13–14)

Like a worm on a fishhook, temptation draws a person into what seems delicious but leads to death—spiritual or even, at times, physical. We should take sober warning from passages like this. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).

Lord, I want to stay as far away from temptation as possible because I know how easy it is to fall. Help me not succumb to the arrogance of assuming it could never happen to me.