Key Verse: “He followed her at once, like an ox going
to the slaughter.” (v.22)
The café was still open, lights dimmed to a late-hour amber. Espresso machines hissed like tired animals. Rain ticked softly against the windows, blurring the street into watercolor streaks of red and white. Solomon was already there, same corner table.
He looked up and smiled, warm but knowing—like he’d been expecting this particular version of me.
“You almost didn’t come,” he said.
I slid into the chair. “I’m predictable now?”
He tapped the table once, gently. “Human.”
A couple argued quietly near the counter—low voices, sharp pauses. A woman laughed too loudly at a man’s joke near the door, touching his arm longer than necessary. Solomon’s eyes flicked that way for half a second, then back to me.
“This section,” he said, opening his weathered leather notebook, “is where I stop being poetic and start being blunt.”
He turned it toward me. Not diagrams tonight—just a single sentence written in thick ink.
She caught him and kissed him.
“In this passage,” Solomon said, “I describe a young man who isn’t evil. He isn’t hunting trouble. He’s just… unguarded.” He leaned in. “I walk the reader from dusk to disaster on purpose.”
He summarized it first, like he always did when the passage was long. “I describe how temptation approaches—how it dresses itself up as opportunity, how it flatters, how it promises secrecy and reward. And then I show the end. Not because I enjoy it. Because people keep skipping to the middle and wondering how they got there.”
I shifted in my seat. The rain intensified, drumming the awning outside.
Solomon’s finger landed on the page. “And then I say this—”
He quoted it slowly, letting the café noise fade.
“He followed her at once, like an ox going to the slaughter.”
The world seemed to slow. The hiss of steam stretched. A spoon clinked in a cup like it echoed twice.
“An ox doesn’t think it’s walking to death,” Solomon said quietly. “It thinks it’s walking to food. To relief. To satisfaction.”
“That feels… harsh,” I said. “Comparing someone to livestock.”
He smiled, not unkindly. “It’s meant to wake you up, not insult you.”
He closed the notebook partway. “Temptation doesn’t tackle you in an alley. It invites you to dinner. It tells you you deserve this. That no one will know. That you’re different. Stronger. Smarter.”
I stared at the condensation sliding down my glass.
“Fantasy,” he continued, “is its favorite language. I learned that the hard way.”
I looked up. He rarely said things like that without weight behind them.
“When I was king,” he said, voice steady but softer, “I had access to anything I wanted. And I told myself I was in control. That I could enjoy without consequence. That wisdom made me immune.”
He met my eyes. “It didn’t.”
The arguing couple left. The woman by the door slipped out with the man, laughter trailing behind them like perfume. Their empty table felt louder than their presence had.
“What made it so dangerous,” Solomon went on, “wasn’t desire. Desire is human. It was the speed. At once. No pause. No question. No counsel. That’s how chains get clasped—quickly.”
I swallowed. “So what are we supposed to do? Pretend we don’t want things?”
Solomon chuckled, gently humorous. “If pretending worked, I wouldn’t have written this.”
He slid the notebook toward me again. This time there was a sketch—simple. A hook hidden inside a worm.
“Imagine a hungry fish drifting through the water, he said. A plump, wriggling worm appears—exactly what the fish wants. It looks harmless, even generous. The fish doesn’t see the danger because the danger is hidden.”
‘The worm is the promise. The hook is the consequence. The fish only sees the worm.”
‘That’s Proverbs 7:10–27 in miniature: temptation always advertises the worm and never the hook. By the time the fish bites, the outcome is already decided.”
I thought about the ways I justified things. The mental footnotes. The just this once. The I’ll stop after.
“Here’s the uncomfortable truth,” Solomon said, tapping the page. “Most people don’t fall because they’re weak. They fall because they’re uncurious about consequences.”
The café lights flickered slightly as closing time neared. Chairs stacked. The barista wiped down counters, glancing at us like we were lingering too long—which we were.
Solomon leaned back. “Remember this: flattery is not affirmation. Secrecy is not safety. And intensity is not intimacy.”
He stood, boots soft against the floor. “Temptation promises life and delivers loss. Wisdom looks past the moment and chooses the ending.”
When he left, the chair across from me stayed warm for a second. Then it didn’t.
I sat there longer than I needed to, thinking about paths I’d walked without thinking. How often I followed at once.
What? This passage shows how temptation works—through flattery, secrecy, and fantasy—and how quickly unguarded desire can lead to destruction.
So What? Because the most dangerous choices in modern life rarely feel dangerous at first—they feel justified, exciting, and harmless.
Now What? Pause the next time something pulls at you—ask what the ending is, not just what it promises right now.
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