35 Paul Kruger develops this section as an allegory consisting of a series of metaphors. He suggests that what is at issue is private versus common property. The images of the cistern, well, or fountain are used of a wife (e.g., Song 4:15) because she, like water, satisfies desires. Streams of water in the street would then mean sexual contact with a lewd woman. According to 7:12 she never stays home but is in the streets and is the property of many (P. Kruger, “Promiscuity and Marriage Fidelity? A Note on Prov 5:15–18,” 13 [1987]: 61–68).
36 The verb means “to be scattered; to be dispersed”; here the imperfect takes a deliberative nuance in a rhetorical question.
37 The ל (lamed) preposition denotes possession: “for you” = “yours.” The term לְבַדֶּךָ (lévadekha) is appositional, underscoring the possession as exclusive.
38 The point is that what is private is not to be shared with strangers; it belongs in the home and in the marriage. The water from that cistern is not to be channeled to strangers or to the public.

In other versions

Drink water from your own cistern,

flowing water from your own well.

Should your springs be scattered abroad,

streams of water in the streets?

Let them be for yourself alone,

and not for strangers with you.

Drink water from your own cistern,

running water from your own well.

Should your springs overflow in the streets,

your streams of water in the public squares?

Let them be yours alone,

never to be shared with strangers.

Drink water from your own cistern,

water flowing from your own well.

Should your springs flow in the streets,

streams in the public squares?

They should be for you alone

and not for you to share with strangers.

Drink water from your own well—

share your love only with your wife.

Why spill the water of your springs in the streets,

having sex with just anyone?

You should reserve it for yourselves.

Never share it with strangers.

Drink water from your own cistern

and flowing waters from inside your own well.

Shall your springs be scattered outward?

In the streets, shall there be streams of water?

May they be yours alone,

and not for strangers who are with you.

Drink waters out of thine own cistern,

And running waters out of thine own well.

Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad,

And rivers of waters in the streets.

Let them be only thine own,

And not strangers’ with thee.

Public Domain