Proverbs 1:1-33
[sup]1[/sup]The Proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel: [sup]2[/sup] To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding; [sup]3[/sup]To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity; [sup]4[/sup] To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion. [sup]5[/sup] A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels: [sup]6[/sup] To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. [sup]7[/sup] The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise widsom and instruction. [sup]8[/sup] My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: [sup]9[/sup] For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck. [sup]10[/sup] My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not. [sup]11[/sup] If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause: [sup]12[/sup] Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit: [sup]13[/sup] We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil: [sup]14[/sup] Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse: [sup]15[/sup] My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path: [sup]16[/sup] For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. [sup]17[/sup] Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. [sup]18[/sup] And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives. [sup]19[/sup] So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof. [sup]20[/sup] Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: [sup]21[/sup] She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, [sup]22[/sup] How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? [sup] 23[/sup] Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. [sup]24[/sup] Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; [sup]25[/sup] But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: [sup]26[/sup] I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; [sup]27[/sup] When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. [sup]28[/sup] Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me: [sup]29[/sup] For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord; [sup]30[/sup] They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. [sup]31[/sup] Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. [sup]32[/sup] For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. [sup]33[/sup] But whoso herkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.