Proverbs 5:15 is a call to find satisfaction and faithfulness within your own marriage rather than looking for it outside it. The verse uses the picture of drinking from your own well to describe enjoying what God has given you, instead of seeking water from someone else’s source. King Solomon, traditionally identified as the author of this section, speaks to a young man as a father would to a son, warning him about the pull of an unfaithful relationship.
Drink water out of your own cistern, running water out of your own well.
Proverbs 5:15 (WEB)
What Proverbs 5:15 Means
Water in the ancient Near East was precious, and a family’s cistern or well was a dependable source of life. The verse uses that image to say that the good you need is already available to you through the commitment you have made. “Your own cistern” and “your own well” point to a settled, personal relationship, not a shared or borrowed one.
The phrase “running water” suggests freshness and abundance that does not run dry. Marriage, in this picture, is not a stagnant pool but a source that continues to refresh when it is tended with care and fidelity. The verse does not promise that a marriage will always feel exciting or that temptation will disappear. It describes where lasting refreshment is found and invites the reader to draw from it.
What the verse does not say is that every desire will vanish or that a faithful life is effortless. It is a proverb, which means it states a general truth about how wisdom usually works out, not a guarantee in every case. Its force is practical: the person who keeps to his own well tends to live more peaceably than the one who wanders.
The Context of Proverbs 5:15
The book of Proverbs is a collection of wise sayings meant to shape character and guide conduct, and chapter 5 is a warning against sexual immorality framed as a father’s instruction. The surrounding verses show the cost of ignoring that counsel. The speaker in verses 12 through 14 regrets having rejected instruction and ends up at “the brink of utter ruin,” which is the consequence the father is trying to prevent.
Seen in that light, verse 15 is not a random image but the positive side of the warning. Immediately after it, verses 16 and 17 ask whether water should overflow into the streets and be shared with strangers, a rhetorical way of saying that such waste is foolish. Verse 18 then calls the reader to rejoice in the wife of his youth. The verse therefore reads as an invitation to contentment and loyalty, the healthy alternative to the ruin described just before it.
Key Phrases in Proverbs 5:15
Proverbs 18:22
Whoever finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor of the LORD.
(WEB)
This verse speaks of finding a good wife as a gift from the Lord, which complements Proverbs 5:15 by affirming that the spouse God gives is a blessing to be received with gratitude rather than overlooked.
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.
(WEB)
Hebrews places marriage in honor and keeps the marriage bed undefiled, reinforcing the New Testament commitment to faithfulness that Proverbs 5:15 teaches in its own wisdom language.
A Short Prayer From Proverbs 5:15
Lord, you know the places in my heart where I am tempted to look elsewhere for what I need. Help me to value the good you have already given me and to drink gladly from the source you have placed in my life. Where I have grown restless or careless, turn my attention back to faithfulness and gratitude. Keep my heart steady, and let what you provide be enough for me. Amen.
