The Proverbs

1:1 The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

1:2 To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

1:3 To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

1:4 To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

1:5 A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

1:6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

1:8 My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

1:9 For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.

1:10 My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.

1:11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

1:12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

1:13 We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

1:14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

1:15 My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:

1:16 For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

1:17 Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

1:18 And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.

1:19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.

1:20 Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:

1:21 She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

1:22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

1:23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.

1:24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

1:25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

1:26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;

1:27 When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

1:28 Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

1:29 For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

1:30 They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

1:31 Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

1:32 For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

1:33 But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.