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