Chapter 1

  The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;  

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  To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;  

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  To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;  

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  To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.  

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  A wise [man] will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:  

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  To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.  

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  The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge: [but] fools despise wisdom and instruction.  

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  My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:  

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  For they [shall be] an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.  

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  My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not.  

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  If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:  

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  Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:  

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  We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:  

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  Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:  

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  My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:  

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  For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.  

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  Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.  

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  And they lay wait for their [own] blood; they lurk privily for their [own] lives.  

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  So [are] the ways of every one that is greedy of gain; [which] taketh away the life of the owners thereof.  

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  Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets:  

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  She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, [saying],  

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  How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?  

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  Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.  

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  Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;  

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  But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:  

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  I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;  

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  When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.  

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  Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:  

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  For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:  

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  They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.  

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  Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.  

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  For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.  

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  But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.  

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