Proverbs Chapter 1
| 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. |