1 ¶ The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel;
2 to know wisdom and chastening; to understand prudent words;
3 to receive the chastening of prudence, justice, judgment, and equity;
4 to give prudence to the simple, and to the young men knowledge and council.
5 If the wise will hear them, doctrine shall increase, and the man of understanding shall acquire wise counsel:
6 To understand a parable and the interpretation; the words of the wise and their enigmas.
7 ¶ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and chastening.
8 My son, hearken unto the chastening of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
9 For they shall be an increase of grace unto thy head and protection about thy neck.
10 ¶ My son, if sinners entice thee, do not consent.
11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay in wait for blood; let us ambush the innocent without cause.
12 Let us swallow them up alive as Sheol and whole as those that go down into the pit;
13 We shall find all kinds of riches, we shall fill our houses with spoil.
14 Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
15 My son, do not walk in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:
16 For their feet shall 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 in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own souls.
19 So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain which takes away the life of those who possess it.
20 ¶ Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets:
21 She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the entrance to the gates of the city she utters her words, saying,
22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and the fools hate knowledge?
23 Return 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 one responded;
25 for because ye have disregarded all my counsel and rejected my reproof:
26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes upon you;
27 when what you have feared comes as destruction, and your calamity comes as a whirlwind; when tribulation and anguish come upon you.
28 Then they shall call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
29 Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
30 They rejected my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
31 Therefore they shall eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own counsel.
32 For the rest of the ignorant shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
33 But whosoever hearkens unto me shall dwell safely and shall rest from the fear of evil.