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.
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