---
title: Proverbs 1
slug: kjv/proverbs-1
createdAt: 2024-08-21T01:53:15.799Z
---

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**18 **And they lay wait for their *own* blood; they lurk privily for their *own* lives.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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