| 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. |
