Provérbios 1

¹ The parables of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel. ² To know wisdom, and instruction: ³ To understand the words of prudence: and to receive the instruction of doctrine, justice, and judgment, and equity: ⁴ To give subtilty to little ones, to the young man knowledge and understanding. ⁵ A wise man shall hear and shall be wiser: and he that understandeth, shall possess governments. ⁶ He shall understand a parable, and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their mysterious sayings. ⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction. ⁸ My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother: ⁹ That grace may be added to thy head, and a chain of gold to thy neck. ¹⁰ My son, if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them. ¹¹ If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause: ¹² Let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit. ¹³ We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils. ¹⁴ Cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse. ¹⁵ My son, walk not thou with them, restrain thy foot from their paths. ¹⁶ For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood. ¹⁷ But a net is spread in vain before the eyes of them that have wings. ¹⁸ And they themselves lie in wait for their own blood, and practise deceits against their own souls. ¹⁹ So the wage of every covetous man destroy the souls of the possessors. ²⁰ Wisdom preacheth abroad, she uttereth her voice in the streets: ²¹ At the head of multitudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying: ²² O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge? ²³ Turn ye at my reproof: behold I will utter my spirit to you, and will shew you my words. ²⁴ Because I called, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded. ²⁵ You have despised all my counsel, and have neglected my reprehensions. ²⁶ I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when that shall come to you which you feared. ²⁷ When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction, as a tempest, shall be at hand: when tribulation and distress shall come upon you: ²⁸ Then shall they call upon me, and I will not hear: they shall rise in the morning and shall not find me: ²⁹ Because they have hated instruction and received not the fear of the Lord, ³⁰ Nor consented to my counsel, but despised all my reproof. ³¹ Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and shall be filled with their own devices. ³² The turning away of little ones shall kill them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them. ³³ But he that shall hear me, shall rest without terror, and shall enjoy abundance, without fear of evils.