LEB PROV Chapter 1

Prologue

• 2 To know wisdom and instruction, to understand sayings of understanding,
• 3 to gain insightful instruction ,[fn] righteousness and justice and equity,
• 4 to give shrewdness[fn] to the simple, knowledge and purpose[fn] to the young,
• 5 may the wise hear and increase learning, and the one who understands gain direction,[fn]
• 6 to understand a proverb and an expression, words of wisdom and their riddles.
• 7 Fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction, fools despise.

Lecture Against Gang Behavior

• 8 My child, may you keep[fn] your father’s instruction, and do not reject your mother’s teachings,
• 9 for they are a garland of favor for your head, and pendants for your neck.
• 10 My child, if sinners entice you, do not consent.
  • 11 If they say, “Come with us!
  • We shall lie in wait for blood;
  • we shall ambush the innocent without cause.[fn]
  • 12 Like Sheol,[fn] we will swallow them alive and whole, like those who descend to the pit .[fn]
  • 13 We shall find all precious wealth, we shall fill our houses with booty,
  • 14 you shall throw your lot in our midst, there will be one purse for all of us.”
  • 15 My child, do not walk in their way.[fn] Keep your foot from their paths,
  • 16 for their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed blood,
  • 17 for “in vain[fn] is the net scattered, in the sight of any winged bird .”[fn]
  • 18 They lie in wait for their own blood. They ambush their own lives.
  • 19 Thus are the ways of all who are greedy for gain— it will take the life of its possessors.
  
  

The Call of Lady Wisdom

• 20 Wisdom calls out in the streets, in the squares she raises her voice.
• 21 On a busy corner[fn] she cries out, at the entrances of the gates in the city, she speaks her sayings:
• 22 “ How long ,[fn] O simple ones, will you love simplicity? And how long will scoffers delight in their scoffing,
• and fools hate knowledge?
• 23 May you turn to my argument![fn] Behold, I shall pour out my spirit upon you;
• I will make my words known to you.
• 24 Because I called out and you refused me, I stretched out my hand, yet there is none who heeds.
• 25 You have ignored all my counsel, and my reproof you are not willing to accept.
• 26 I will also laugh at your calamity;[fn] I will mock when panic[fn] comes upon you.
• 27 When your panic comes like a storm, and your calamity arrives like a whirlwind,
• when distress and anguish come upon you,
• 28 then they will call[fn] me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but not find me.
• 29 Since they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of Yahweh,
• 30 they were not willing to accept my counsel, they despised all my reproof.
• 31 They shall eat from the fruit of their way, and they shall be sated from their own schemes,
• 32 for the waywardness of the simple ones will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.
• 33 Whoever listens to me will dwell in security and rest securely[fn] from dread and disaster.”