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.
|