1 The proverbs of Sol´o·mon the son of David, the king of Israel, 2 for one to know wisdom and discipline, to discern the sayings of understanding, 3 to receive the discipline that gives insight, righteousness and judgment and uprightness, 4 to give to the inexperienced ones shrewdness, to a young man knowledge and thinking ability.
5 A wise person will listen and take in more instruction, and a man of understanding is the one who acquires skillful direction, 6 to understand a proverb and a puzzling saying, the words of wise persons and their riddles.
7 The fear of Yehowah is the beginning of knowledge. Wisdom and discipline are what mere fools have despised.
8 Listen, my son, to the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the law of your mother. 9 For they are a wreath of attractiveness to your head and a fine necklace to your throat.
10 My son, if sinners try to seduce you, do not consent. 11 If 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. 12 Let us swallow them down alive just like She´ol, even whole, like those going down into a pit. 13 Let us find all sorts of precious valuables. Let us fill our houses with spoil. 14 Your lot you ought to cast in among us. Let there come to be just one bag belonging to all of us”— 15 my son, do not go in the way with them. Hold back your foot from their roadway. 16 For their feet are those that run to sheer badness, and they keep hastening to shed blood. 17 For it is for nothing that the net is spread before the eyes of anything owning wings. 18 Consequently they themselves lie in ambush for the very blood of these; they lie in concealment for their souls. 19 Thus are the paths of everyone making unjust profit. It takes away the very soul of its owners.
20 True wisdom itself keeps crying aloud in the very street. In the public squares it keeps giving forth its voice. 21 At 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? 23 Turn back at my reproof. Then to you I will cause my spirit to bubble forth; I will make my words known to you. 24 Because I have called out but you keep refusing, I have stretched out my hand but there is no one paying attention, 25 and you keep neglecting all my counsel, and my reproof you have not accepted, 26 I also, for my part, shall laugh at your own disaster, I shall mock when what you dread comes, 27 when 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. 28 At that time they will keep calling me, but I shall not answer; they will keep looking for me, but they will not find me, 29 for the reason that they hated knowledge, and the fear of Yehowah they did not choose. 30 They did not consent to my counsel; they disrespected all my reproof. 31 So they will eat from the fruitage of their way, and they will be glutted with their own counsels. 32 For the renegading of the inexperienced ones is what will kill them, and the easygoingness of the stupid is what will destroy them. 33 As for the one listening to me, he will reside in security and be undisturbed from dread of calamity.”
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