CHAPTER 1
1The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel.
2To know wisdom and reproof,
to understand discerning maxims.
3To accept the reproof of insight,
righteousness, justice, and uprightness.
4To give shrewdness to the simple,
to a lad, knowledge and cunning.
5Let the wise man hear and gain learning,
and the discerning acquire designs.
6To understand proverbs and adages,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge.
Wisdom and reproof dolts despise.
8Hear, my son, your father’s reproof,
and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
9For they are a garland of grace on your head
and a necklace round your throat.
10My son, should offenders seduce you,
11Should they say,
“Go with us, let us lie in wait for blood,
stalk the innocent for no reason.
12Let us swallow them live like Sheol,
and the blameless like those gone down to the Pit.
13All precious treasure we shall find,
we shall fill our houses with loot.
14Your lot you should throw in with us,
15My son, do not go on a road with them,
hold back your foot from their path.
16For their feet run to evil,
and they hurry to shed blood.
17For the net is spread out for no reason
in the eyes of each wingèd thing.
18Yet they lie in wait for their own blood,
they lurk for their own lives.
19Thus are the ways of all who chase gain,
its possessor’s life it will take.
20Wisdom cries out in the streets,
in the squares she lifts her voice.
21At the bustling crossroads she calls,
at the entrance to the town’s gate says her sayings:
22How long, dupes, will you love being duped,
and scoffers lust scoffing,
and fools hate knowledge?
23Turn back to my rebuke.
Look, I would pour out my spirit to you,
I would make my words known with you.
24Because I called and you resisted,
I reached out my hand and none paid heed,
25and you flung aside all my counsel,
and you did not want my rebuke.
26I, too, shall laugh at your ruin,
I shall mock when what you feared comes,
27when what you feared comes like disaster,
and your ruin like a whirlwind descends,
when straits and distress come upon you.
28Then they will call me and I shall not answer,
they will seek me and they will not find me.
29Because they have hated knowledge,
and the LORD’s fear they did not choose.
30They did not want my counsel,
they spurned all my rebuke.
31And they ate from the fruit of their way,
and from their own counsels they were sated.
32For the waywardness of dupes will kill them
and the smugness of fools will destroy them.
33But who heeds me will dwell secure,
and tranquil from the fear of harm.