"Drink water from your own cistern, flowing water from your own well.
Should your streams be scattered abroad, streams of water in the streets?
Let them be for yourself alone, and not for sharing with strangers.
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth" (vs. 15-18).
One of Solomon's primary concerns is urging fidelity to his audience. Speaking to a young man whom he addresses as "my son", his warnings against the "loose woman" (vs. 3) and the "adulteress" (vs. 20) come through again and again in the book of Proverbs. Though such a woman may appear enticing and intoxicating at first, she is to be avoided because she leads ultimately to a path of brokenness and shame. The answer, Solomon says, is faithfulness to your spouse.
In a more general sense, Solomon's wisdom could apply to any path that promises quick and easy fun at the expense of what is, in the long-term, more valuable. The hypothetical choice between the excitement of a rendezvous with an adulteress and monogamy with the tried-and-true wife is representative of many other decisions we face in life. But certainly here, in the field of sexual and marital ethics, it applies just as it would in the other cases.
The wise choice, Solomon whispers down through eternity, is staying true.
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