Proverbs 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.⋮