Proverbs 5:12

Proverbs 5:12, in plain English

You'll regret rejecting the discipline and correction that could have saved you from this path—you'll hate that you didn't listen when you had the chance.

Why it's here

At this point in the warning, the father is imagining the internal realization of an older man who now sees what he couldn't see when he was young. His own stubbornness toward correction is the thing he hates most. He despised the guidance that would have protected him.

Who's speaking

The father, speaking as if he's the older man now looking back

Where it sits in the story

Discipline and reproof—being corrected—are presented throughout Proverbs as gifts, not punishments. The tragedy of the foolish person isn't that he was corrected; it's that he rejected correction that could have redirected his life toward flourishing.

The scholarly reading

The aged man will regret that he despised discipline and rejected the correction that could have prevented his ruin.

Language and setting

The Hebrew term מוּסַר (musar)—'discipline' or 'correction'—does not mean punishment in the modern sense but rather formative instruction, the shaping of character through teaching and reproof. The verb שׂנֵא (sane, 'despised') indicates active rejection, not mere neglect. This verse reveals a crucial element of Proverbs' moral psychology: the young man had access to correction but chose to spurn it. As Matthew Henry wrote, 'He had the counsel but would not take it, had the correction but would not endure it.' The tragedy is not ignorance but willful disregard. This connects to wisdom literature's recurrent theme that destruction is often self-inflicted through the rejection of available guidance.

Voice

Still the father-teacher, but now channeling the voice of the older man's future consciousness.

Significance

This resonates with Proverbs 1:25-30, where Folly mocks those who reject her call and must bear the consequences of their contempt for wisdom.

10lest strangers feast on your wealth, and your labors enrich the house of a foreigner.

11At the end of your life you will groan when your flesh and your body are spent,

12and you will say, “How I hated discipline, and my heart despised reproof!

13I did not listen to the voice of my teachers or incline my ear to my mentors.

14I am on the brink of utter ruin in the midst of the whole assembly.”

Read all of Proverbs 5 — The lips of a forbidden woman drip honey — but her end is bitter as wormwood. A warning that sounds ancient but arrives fresh every generation.