Proverbs Chapter 1

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 subtlety 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 to 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 your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:

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

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

1 : 11 If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privately 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 your lot among us; let us all have one purse:

1 : 15 My son, walk not you in the way with them; refrain your 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 privately for their own lives.

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

1 : 20 Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets:

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

1 : 22 How long, you simple ones, will you 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 to you, I will make known my words to you.

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

1 : 25 But you have set at nothing all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:

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

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

1 : 28 Then shall they call on 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 whoever listens to me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.