Proverbs 6:29

The book of Proverbs gives us insights into so many different areas of life. The book gives us instruction on how to live our lives for God. Here is a proverb that gives us insight about adultery:

Proverbs 6:29 (ESV)

So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife;

none who touches her will go unpunished.

Adultery carries little public shame today ... sometimes, even within the Church.   Society has come along and almost accepted when others sleep with their "neighbors" wife.  We are no longer shocked to see it in the movies and, almost comes to expect it in our friends, community and even family.   Solomon is really familiar with this issue.  He was born from a women who had been an adulterer.   He knew first hand the shame of this act as he grew up in the royal court with David's other "children" born from mothers taken for David's wives appropriately.   What he is telling us in this proverb is that the man who does this type of thing will forever bear the punishment.   David, himself, was not allowed to build a Temple for God because of his own adultery.  Punishment can take on several forms.   But, he can't expect to avoid the punishment.  The sex with someone else's wife may last for a night but the punishment for a life time.   This is as much a promise of God as salvation.   Many may come to accept adultery but that will never include God.  In Ezekiel 33:26 we are told that God is punishing Jerusalem and the people who lived there and one of the reasons was the adultery committed there.  They adultery with foreign gods.  Don't think you can go without punishment.  You may not see the punishment.   It might not be visible and/or immediate.  But, it will be exacted by God.   Note what Paul said about this type of sin:

1 Corinthians 6:18 (ESV)

Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.

God will not turn His eyes away from this sin.  We will and can be saved from the punishment of this type of sin.  But, we are not always saved from the earthly consequences of this sin as it eats away at homes, families, ruined friendships, and destroyed reputations.   

And, remember, in Proverbs these type of truths are also referring to folly vs wisdom.  The person who has an adulterous affair with folly and forsakes wisdom will forever pay the consequences of that choice.