| 1 | The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; |
| 2 | To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; |
| 3 | To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; |
| 4 | To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. |
| 5 | A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain to wise counsels: |
| 6 | To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. |
| 7 | The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction. |
| 8 | My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: |
| 9 | For they shalt be an ornament of grace to thy head, and chains about thy neck. |
| 10 | My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. |
| 11 | If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: |
| 12 | Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: |
| 13 | We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: |
| 14 | Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: |
| 15 | My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: |
| 16 | For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. |
| 17 | Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. |
| 18 | And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. |
| 19 | So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; who taketh away the life of its owners. |
| 20 | Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: |
| 21 | She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, |
| 22 | How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? |
| 23 | Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit to you, I will make known to you my words. |
| 24 | Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; |
| 25 | But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and rejected my reproof: |
| 26 | I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; |
| 27 | When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. |
| 28 | Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: |
| 29 | For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD: |
| 30 | They rejected my counsel: they despised all my reproof. |
| 31 | Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. |
| 32 | For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. |
| 33 | But whoever hearkeneth to me shall dwell in safety, and shall be quiet from fear of evil. |