Moff PROV Chapter 1

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Maxims of Solomon king of Israel, the son of David:

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q1 for gaining sagacity and intelligence,

for a grasp of wise teaching,

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for training in right conduct,

in duty, goodness, and integrity,

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for imparting insight to the ignorant,

knowledge and sense to the young,

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for understanding maxims and parables,

the sentences of sages and their aphorisms.

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(Let the sage too listen and learn sense,

let the intelligent know how to handle life.)

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Reverence for the Eternal is the first thing in knowledge,

but the impious scorn sagacity and intelligence.

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Listen, my son, to your father’s instructions,

reject not your mother’s directions:

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they will be a graceful garland for your head,

as a necklace for your neck.

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My son, if scoundrels would lead you astray,

never agree to it;

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if they say, “Come along, let us trap honest folk,

let us ambush the innocent,

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let us swallow them up like death,

swallow them whole, as men die in their prime;

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we shall get all sorts of rare stuff,

and cram our houses with booty.

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Cast in your lot with us,

we will have all one purse”--

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my son, never join them,

keep clear of their courses.

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It is in vain that birds behold

the net spread for them;

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and these men trap themselves in death,

’tis their own lives they ambush.

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Such is the fate of gain ill-got;

it ruins those who grasp it.

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Wisdom calls aloud in the streets,

and lifts her voice in the squares,

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crying from the busy markets,

and at the entry of the town-gates:

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“O heedless ones, how long will you choose to be heedless,

and scoffers delight in scoffing,

and senseless folk hate knowledge?

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Pay heed to my warning;

I open my mind to you,

I let you hear what I decide:

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‘because I have called and you would not listen,

nor heeded me as I beckoned,

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because you have shunned my counsel,

and would not take my warning,

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the laugh will be mine in the hour of your plight,

I will be mocking when your terror comes,

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when your terror comes like a tempest,

when your plight comes on like a whirlwind,

when shock and calamity seize you.’

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Then they may call, but I will never answer,

then they may seek, but never shall they find me,

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since they hated knowledge

and chose not to reverence the Eternal.

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They would have none of my counsel,

but despised every warning of mine;

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so now they must eat the fruit of their own doings,

and have their fill of all that they devised.

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For heedless folk fall by their own self-will,

the senseless are destroyed by their indifference;

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but safe he lives who listens to me;

from fear of harm he shall be wholly free.”