LEB PRO Chapter 1

Prologue

• 2 to understand sayings of understanding,
• 3 [fn] righteousness and justice and equity,
• 4 [fn] to the simple, knowledge and purpose[fn] to the young,
• 5  and the one who understands gain direction,[fn]
• 6  words of wisdom and their riddles.
• 7 is the beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction, fools despise.

Lecture Against Gang Behavior

• 8 [fn] your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teachings,
• 9 are a garland of favor for your head, and pendants for your neck.
10 
• 11  “Come with us!
• We shall lie in wait for blood;
• we shall ambush the innocent without cause.[fn]
• 12 [fn] we will swallow them alive and whole,[fn]
• 13  we shall fill our houses with booty,
• 14  there will be one purse for all of us.”
• 15 [fn] Keep your foot from their paths,
• 16  and they hurry to shed blood,
• 17 [fn] is the net scattered, in the sight of any[fn]
• 18 own blood. They ambush their own lives.
• 19 for gain— it will take the life of its possessors.

The Call of Lady Wisdom

• 20 in the squares she raises her voice.
• 21 [fn] she cries out, at the entrances of the gates in the city, she speaks her sayings:
• 22 [fn] O simple ones, will you love simplicity? And how long will scoffers delight in their scoffing,
• and fools hate knowledge?
• 23 [fn] Behold, I shall pour out my spirit upon you;
• I will make my words known to you.
• 24  I stretched out my hand, yet there is none who heeds.
• 25  and my reproof you are not willing to accept.
• 26 [fn] I will mock when panic[fn] comes upon you.
• 27  and your calamity arrives like a whirlwind,
• when distress and anguish come upon you,
• 28 [fn] me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but not find me.
• 29  and did not choose the fear of Yahweh,
• 30 to accept my counsel, they despised all my reproof.
• 31  and they shall be sated from their own schemes,
• 32  and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
• 33  and rest securely[fn] from dread and disaster.”