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