15 Drink water from your own cistern,
flowing water from your own well.
16 Should your springs be scattered abroad,
streams of water in the streets?
17 Let them be for yourself alone,
and not for strangers with you.
18 Let your fountain be blessed,
and rejoice in the wife of your youth,
19 a lovely deer, a graceful doe.
Let her breasts fill you at all times with delight;
be intoxicated always in her love.
20 Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress?
21 For a man's ways are before the eyes of the Lord,
and he ponders all his paths.
22 The iniquities of the wicked ensnare him,
and he is held fast in the cords of his sin.
23 He dies for lack of discipline,
and because of his great folly he is led astray.
The closing verses of the chapter portray fidelity as the more excellent way. The AV and RSV translate 16 differently. The metaphor in both renderings concerns chastity and fidelity, and the sanctity of home and family life. If the RSV is followed, - 'Should your springs be scattered abroad...?' - what is referred to is the wastefulness of promiscuity and loose living (in terms of 9ff). But the AV is probably truer to the original - 'Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad', and the meaning is that fidelity within the marriage bond is not a dull and impoverishing experience, but one that is productive of rich influ- ences for society in general. This is an important and significant picture, and one which needs to be displayed with great prominence today, and communicated to our young generation groping so uncertainly in the morass of our sick society. What a word this is to give the lie to the squalid portrayal by the mass media of marital infidelity as some- thing exciting and thrilling and the 'in' thing! We are often far too apologetic about the Christian way of life, as if it were something feeble and dull, instead of the healthful, in- vigorating and even exhilarating experience that is everywhere portrayed in the Scrip- tures. A dull Christian is really a contradiction in terms!