| 1 ¶ The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;
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| 2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;
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| 3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;1
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| 4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.2
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| 5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
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| 6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation;3 the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
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| 7 ¶ The fear of the LORD is the beginning4 of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
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| 8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
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| 9 For they shall be an5 ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.
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| 10 ¶ My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
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| 11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
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| 12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
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| 13 We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:
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| 14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
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| 15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:
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| 16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
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| 17 Surely in vain the6 net is spread in the sight of any bird.
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| 18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
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| 19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
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| 20 ¶ Wisdom7 crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:
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| 21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,
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| 22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
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| 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
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| 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
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| 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
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| 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
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| 27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
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| 28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
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| 29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
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| 30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
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| 31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
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| 32 For the turning8 away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
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| 33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
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