Proverbs 1

1 The proverbs of Solomon son of David, who reigned in Israel:

2 to know wisdom and instruction, and to understand words of discernment;

3 to receive the turns of speech, to understand true righteousness, and to direct judgment;

4 to give shrewdness to the innocent, and perception and reflection to a young person.

5 By hearing these, a wise person will become wiser, and one who understands will gain guidance.

6 He will understand a proverb and an obscure saying, the sayings of the wise and their riddles.

7 The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, and good understanding belongs to everyone who practices it. Devoutness toward God is the beginning of perception, but the ungodly will despise wisdom and instruction.

8 “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s rules.

9 For you will receive a crown of favor on your head and a gold chain around your neck.

10 My son, do not let ungodly men lead you astray, and do not consent if they urge you, saying:

11 “Come with us and share in bloodshed. Let us unjustly hide a righteous man in the earth.

12 Let us swallow him alive like Hades and erase his memory from the earth.

13 Let us seize his costly possessions and fill our houses with plunder.

14 Cast your lot in with us. We will all have a common purse and one bag among us.”

15 Do not travel their road. Turn your foot away from their paths.

16 For their feet run toward evil and are swift to shed blood.

17 A net is not spread for winged creatures without reason.

18 Those who share in murder store up evils for themselves, and the overthrow of lawbreakers is grievous.

19 Such are the ways of everyone who completes lawless deeds: by their ungodliness they take away their own life.”

20 Wisdom is praised in the streets and speaks boldly in the public squares.

21 She proclaims from the tops of walls, sits beside the gates of rulers, and speaks confidently at the city gates:

22 “As long as the innocent hold to righteousness, they will not be put to shame. But foolish people desire arrogance; after becoming ungodly, they hated perception

23 and became liable to correction. Look, I will pour out a declaration of my breath for you; I will teach you my word.

24 Because I called and you did not listen, and I held out my words but you paid no attention;

25 because you made my counsel void and disobeyed my corrections;

26 therefore I too will laugh at your destruction. I will delight when ruin comes upon you,

27 when panic suddenly reaches you, when your overthrow arrives like a storm, and when distress, siege, and destruction come upon you.

28 Then you will call on me, but I will not listen to you. Evil people will seek me but will not find me.

29 For they hated wisdom and did not choose the fear of the Lord.

30 They did not want to heed my counsel, but mocked my corrections.

31 Therefore they will eat the fruit of their own way and be filled with their own ungodliness.

32 Because they wronged the naive, they will be killed, and a reckoning will destroy the ungodly.

33 But whoever listens to me will dwell in hope and rest without fear of any evil.”