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 unto 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 shall be an ornament of grace unto 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; which
taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
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 unto you,
I will make known my words unto you.
24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out
my hand, and no man regarded;
25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of
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 would none of 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 whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall
be quiet from fear of evil.
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