RWebster - Proverbs - 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 prudence 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 thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:

1:9  For they shall be an ornament of grace to 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 secretly 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; keep 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 secretly for their own lives.

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

1:20  Wisdom crieth outside; 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 ye at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit to you, I will make known to you my words.

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 rejected 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  Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

1:30  They rejected 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 hearkeneth to me shall dwell in safety, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.