Proverbs 1:1–33

¹The proverbs of Sol′o‧mon the son of David, the king of Israel,²for one to know wisdom and discipline, to discern the sayings of understanding,³to receive the discipline that gives insight, righteousness and judgment and uprightness,⁴to give to the inexperienced ones shrewdness, to a young man knowledge and thinking ability.

⁵A wise person will listen and take in more instruction, and a man of understanding is the one who acquires skillful direction,⁶to understand a proverb and a puzzling saying, the words of wise persons and their riddles.

⁷The fear of Jehovah is the beginning of knowledge. Wisdom and discipline are what mere fools have despised.

⁸Listen, my son, to the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother.⁹For they are a wreath of attractiveness to your head and a fine necklace to your throat.

¹⁰My son, if sinners try to seduce you, do not consent.¹¹If they keep saying: “Do go with us. Do let us lie in ambush for blood. Do let us lie in concealment for the innocent men without any cause.¹²Let us swallow them down alive just like She′ol, even whole, like those going down into a pit.¹³Let us find all sorts of precious valuables. Let us fill our houses with spoil.¹⁴Your lot you ought to cast in among us. Let there come to be just one bag belonging to all of us”—¹⁵my son, do not go in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their roadway.¹⁶For their feet are those that run to sheer badness, and they keep hastening to shed blood.¹⁷For it is for nothing that the net is spread before the eyes of anything owning wings.¹⁸Consequently they themselves lie in ambush for the very blood of these; they lie in concealment for their souls.¹⁹Thus are the paths of everyone making unjust profit. It takes away the very soul of its owners.

²⁰True wisdom itself keeps crying aloud in the very street. In the public squares it keeps giving forth its voice.²¹At the upper end of the noisy streets it calls out. At the entrances of the gates into the city it says its own sayings:

²²“How long will ​YOU​ inexperienced ones keep loving inexperience, and [how long] must ​YOU​ ridiculers desire for yourselves outright ridicule, and [how long] will ​YOU​ stupid ones keep hating knowledge?²³Turn back at my reproof. Then to ​YOU​ I will cause my spirit to bubble forth; I will make my words known to ​YOU.²⁴Because I have called out but ​YOU​ keep refusing, I have stretched out my hand but there is no one paying attention,²⁵and ​YOU​ keep neglecting all my counsel, and my reproof ​YOU​ have not accepted,²⁶I also, for my part, shall laugh at ​YOUR​ own disaster, I shall mock when what ​YOU​ dread comes,²⁷when what ​YOU​ dread comes just like a storm, and ​YOUR​ own disaster gets here just like a storm wind, when distress and hard times come upon ​YOU.²⁸At that time they will keep calling me, but I shall not answer; they will keep looking for me, but they will not find me,²⁹for the reason that they hated knowledge, and the fear of Jehovah they did not choose.³⁰They did not consent to my counsel; they disrespected all my reproof.³¹So they will eat from the fruitage of their way, and they will be glutted with their own counsels.³²For the renegading of the inexperienced ones is what will kill them, and the easygoingness of the stupid is what will destroy them.³³As for the one listening to me, he will reside in security and be undisturbed from dread of calamity.”