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. |