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 subtilty 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 will attain to 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 abandon not the law of your mother ⁹ For they will be an ornament of grace to your head, and chains about your neck. ¹⁰ My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. ¹¹ If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk secretly 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 will find all precious wealth, we will fill our houses with spoil ¹⁴ Cast in your lot among us let us all have one purse ¹⁵ My son, do not walk 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 ambush their own blood they that lurk secretly 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 of it. 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, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? ²³ Turn you at my reproof: see, I will pour out my spirit to you, I will make known my words to you. ²⁴ Because I have called, and you refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; ²⁵ But you have neglected all my counsel, and accepted none of 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 on you. ²⁸ Then will they call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me early, but they will not find me ²⁹ For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD ³⁰ They accepted none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof. ³¹ Therefore will they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. ³² For the turning away of the simple will kill them, and the prosperity of fools will destroy them. ³³ But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, and will be quiet from fear of evil.