1The use of the proverbs. 7An exhortation to fear God, and regard the advice of parents: 10and to avoid the enticings of sinners. 20Wisdom complaineth of the contempt of scorners: 24she threateneth them.
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1The 1proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;
2To 1know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;
3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and aequity;
4To 1give 2subtilty to the 3simple, to the young man knowledge and adiscretion.
5A 1wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and 2a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
6To 1understand a proverb, and athe interpretation; the 2words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
7¶ The 1fear of the Lordisathe beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
8My 1son, 2hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
9For 1they shall be an aornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.
10¶ My son, 1if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.
11If they say, 1Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
121Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, 2as those that go down into the pit:
13We 1shall 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, 1walk not thou in the way with them; 2refrain thy foot from their path:
16For 1their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
171Surely in vain the net is spread ain the sight of any bird.
18And 1they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
19So are the ways of every one 1that is greedy of gain; which taketh away the life of the owners thereof.
20¶ aWisdom 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,
221How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools 2hate knowledge?
231Turn you at my reproof: behold, I 2will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
24¶ 1Because 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 1also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
271When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
281Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
29For 1that they hated knowledge, and did not 2choose the fear of the Lord:
30They 1would none of my counsel: 2they despised all my reproof.
311Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
32For 1the aturning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
33But 1whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.