Proverbs - Chapter 1 - King James 2000
- The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;
- To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;
- To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;
- To give prudence to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
- A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
- To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their riddles.
- The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
- My son, hear the instruction of your father, and forsake not the law of your mother:
- For they shall be an ornament of grace unto your head, and chains about your neck.
- My son, if sinners entice you, consent not.
- If they say, Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us lurk secretly for the innocent without cause:
- Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
- We shall find all kinds of precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:
- Cast in your lot among us; let us all have one purse:
- My son, walk not in the way with them; refrain your foot from their path:
- For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
- Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
- And they lie in wait for their own blood; they lurk secretly for their own lives.
- So are the ways of everyone that is greedy of gain; which takes away the life of its owners.
- Wisdom cries aloud outside; she raises her voice in the open square:
- She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she utters her words, saying,
- How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? and the scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge?
- Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
- Because I have called, and you refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;
- But you have ignored all my counsel, and would have none of my reproof:
- I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear comes;
- When your terror comes as desolation, and your destruction comes as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish comes upon you.
- Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
- Because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
- They would have none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
- Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
- For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
- But whosoever hearkens unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be secure from the fear of evil.