Purposes and themes
1
📚✭The proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel:2 📚✭To know wisdom and instruction;
to discern words of understanding;
3 📚To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice,
and judgment, and fairness;
4 📚To give shrewdness to the simple✭,
knowledge and discretion to the young✭
5 📚(A wise person will hear
and increase learning,
and a man of understanding will attain
to wise counsels);
6 📚To understand a proverb,
and the interpretation,
the words of the wise, and their riddles.
7 📚The fear✭ of the LORD is the beginning
of knowledge, but fools✭
despise wisdom and instruction.
Exhortations to avoid evil men
8 📚✭My son, hear the instruction
of your father,
and do not forsake the law
of your mother;
9 📚For they will be an ornament
of grace to your head,
and necklaces around your neck.
10 📚✭ My son, if sinners entice you,
do not consent.
11 📚If they say, “Come with us.
Let us lie in wait for blood.
Let us lurk secretly for the innocent
without cause.
12 📚Let us swallow them up alive
like the grave✭, and whole,
like those who go down into the pit.
13 📚We will get all kinds of valuable stuff.
We will fill our houses with plunder.
14 Throw in your lot among us.
Let us all have one purse”.
15 📚My son, do not walk in the way with them.
Keep your foot from their path.
16 📚For their feet run to evil,
and hurry to shed blood.
17 📚✭Surely in vain the net is spread
in the sight of any bird.
18 📚✭And they lie in wait for their own blood!
They lurk secretly for their own lives!
19 📚Such are the ways of everyone
who is greedy for gain.
It takes away the life of its owners.
Wisdom calls and warns of disaster
20 📚✭Wisdom cries out in the public square;
she utters her voice in the streets;
21 📚She cries out in the principal thoroughfares,
at the entrance of the gates
of the city she utters her words, saying,
22 📚✭“How long, you simple✭ ones,
will you love simple ways?
And the scorners delight in their scorning,
and fools hate knowledge?
23 📚✭Turn at my rebuke. See,
I will pour out my spirit to you,
I will make my words known to you.
24 📚✭“But since I have called, and you refused;
I have stretched out my hand,
and no one paid attention,
25 📚But you have ignored all my counsel,
and were not willing for any of my rebuke,
26 📚✭I also will laugh at your calamity.
I will mock when your fear comes.
27 📚When your fear comes like desolation,
and your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come on you.
28 📚✭Then they will call on me,
but I will not answer.
They will seek me early, but they will not find me,
29 📚✭For they hated knowledge,
and did not choose the fear of the LORD.
30 📚They would have none of my counsel.
They despised all my rebuke.
31 📚Therefore they will eat the fruit
of their own way,
and be filled with their own schemes.
32 📚✭For the turning away of the simple
will kill them,
and the prosperity✭ of fools will destroy them.
33 📚But whoever listens to me will dwell in safety,
and will securely rest from fear of disaster”.