Proverbs 5:15 is a call to find contentment and satisfaction within your own committed relationships and resources rather than chasing what belongs to someone else. The verse uses the image of water from your own well, which is the faithful life you have been given. King Solomon, traditionally identified as the author of this section, speaks to his son, a young man who is being drawn toward an immoral woman and her empty promises.
Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
Proverbs 5:15 (WEB)
What Proverbs 5:15 Means
The “cistern” and “well” were the essential water sources of ancient Israel. A cistern collected rainwater and a well drew from underground springs, and a household depended on them for life. Calling them “your own” stresses ownership and belonging. The water is clean, reliable and sufficient because it comes from a source you have tended and trusted over time.
The image shifts from stagnant or stolen water to “running water,” a fresh supply that flows and refreshes. The verse is not a rule about physical thirst. It is a picture of where real refreshment for the heart and body is found: in covenant faithfulness, in the marriage bed, in the gifts God has placed in your hands. The verse does not promise that every struggle will vanish, but it does claim that what is rightly yours can satisfy you more deeply than what is forbidden.
The Context of Proverbs 5:15
Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings meant to shape character and guide young people toward a life of godly wisdom, and chapter 5 is one of its warnings against sexual sin. The opening verses describe the seductive words of a “strange woman” whose path leads to ruin. The text is addressed to a son, so the audience is young men learning to choose between the way of wisdom and the way of folly.
The verses just before and after explain the verse’s purpose. Verses 12 through 14 show a man who has despised instruction and now stands at “the brink of utter ruin,” which gives the warning its weight. Verses 16 through 18 then ask whether your springs should overflow into the streets and set your water loose among strangers, and they close by urging you to rejoice in “the wife of your youth.” Read in this setting, verse 15 is the hinge of the passage: it turns the reader from the danger of wandering toward the blessing of staying faithful.
Key Phrases in Proverbs 5:15
Hebrews 13:4
Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.
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This verse calls marriage honorable among all and the marriage bed undefiled, reinforcing the same commitment to faithfulness that Proverbs 5:15 presents through its image of your own water source.
John 4:13-14
13 Jesus answered her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never thirst again; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.”
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Jesus speaks of a water that satisfies forever, showing that the deepest thirst is ultimately met by God himself, the true source behind every faithful blessing.
A Short Prayer From Proverbs 5:15
Lord, you know how easily my eyes wander toward what looks more satisfying than what you have given me. Forgive me for the times I have gone looking for water in places that cannot refresh my soul. Teach me to value the cistern and well you have placed in my hands, and help me to keep them clean and faithful. Let the life I share with the people you have entrusted to me become a source of joy and strength. Fill me with your living water so that I need not drink from streams that leave me empty. Amen.
