¹ The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

² To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;

³ To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;

⁴ To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.

⁵ A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

⁶ To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

⁷ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

⁸ My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:

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

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

¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privately for the innocent without cause:

¹² Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

¹³ We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:

¹⁴ Cast in your lot among us; let us all have one purse:

¹⁵ My son, walk not you in the way with them; refrain your foot from their path:

¹⁶ For their feet 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 wait for their own blood; they lurk privately for their own lives.

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

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

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

²² How long, all of you simple ones, will all of you love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

²³ Turn you 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 all of you refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

²⁵ But all of you have set at nothing all my counsel, and refused my reproof:

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

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

²⁸ Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

²⁹ For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

³⁰ They refused my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

³¹ Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.

³² For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

³³ But whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.