Proverbs 1

¹The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel; ²To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; ³To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;⁴To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.⁵A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: ⁶To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

⁷The fear of the Lordis the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.⁸My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: ⁹For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

¹⁰My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. ¹¹If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: ¹²Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: ¹³We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: ¹⁴Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: ¹⁵My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: ¹⁶For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. ¹⁷Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. ¹⁸And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. ¹⁹So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

²⁰Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: ²¹She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, ²²How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? ²³Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

²⁴Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; ²⁵But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: ²⁶I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; ²⁷When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. ²⁸Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: ²⁹For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord: ³⁰They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. ³¹Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. ³²For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. ³³But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.