✧1These are the proverbs of Solomon son of David, king of Israel, ✧2for gaining wisdom and discipline, for comprehending words of insight, ✧3and for receiving instruction in wise living and in righteousness, justice, and equity. ✧4To impart prudence to the simple and knowledge and discretion to the young, ✧5let the wise listen and gain instruction, and the discerning acquire wise counsel ✧6by understanding the proverbs and parables, the sayings and riddles of the wise. ✧7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline. ✧8Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother. ✧9
Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Dedicated to the public domain by the rights holder.
For they are a garland of grace on your head and a pendant around your neck.
✧10My son, if sinners entice you, do not yield to them.
✧11If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause,
✧12let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole like those descending into the Pit.
✧13We will find all manner of precious goods; we will fill our houses with plunder.
✧14Throw in your lot with us; let us all share one purse”—
✧15my son, do not walk the road with them or set foot upon their path.
✧16For their feet run to evil, and they are swift to shed blood.
✧17How futile it is to spread the net where any bird can see it!
✧18But they lie in wait for their own blood; they ambush their own lives.
✧19Such is the fate of all who are greedy, whose unjust gain takes the lives of its possessors.
✧20Wisdom calls out in the street, she lifts her voice in the square;
✧21in the main concourse she cries aloud, at the city gates she makes her speech:
✧22“How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge?
✧23If you had repented at my rebuke, then surely I would have poured out my spirit on you; I would have made my words known to you.
✧24Because you refused my call, and no one took my outstretched hand,
✧25because you neglected all my counsel, and wanted none of my correction,
✧26in turn I will mock your calamity; I will sneer when terror strikes you,
✧27when your dread comes like a storm, and your destruction like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish overwhelm you.
✧28Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will earnestly seek me, but will not find me.
✧29For they hated knowledge and chose not to fear the LORD.
✧30They accepted none of my counsel; they despised all my reproof.
✧31So they will eat the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
✧32For the waywardness of the simple will slay them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
✧33But whoever listens to me will dwell in safety, secure from the fear of evil.”