- 1The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;
- 2To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;
- 3To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;
- 4To give subtilty to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.
- 5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:
- 6To 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.
- 8My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
- 9For 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.
- 11If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood, let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:
- 12Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
- 13We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoil:
- 14Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:
- 15My son, walk not thou in the way with them; refrain thy foot from their path:
- 16For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
- 17Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.
- 18And they lay wait for their own blood; they lurk privily for their own lives.
- 19So 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:
- 21She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying,
- 22How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?
- 23Turn 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;
- 25But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof:
- 26I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh;
- 27When your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you.
- 28Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:
- 29For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the LORD:
- 30They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.
- 31Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices.
- 32For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
- 33But whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall be quiet from fear of evil.
KING JAMES VERSION
PROVERBS 1
Read the chapter, follow a linked verse, and continue into related Watchman 33 teaching.
CHAPTER VISUAL
Proverbs 1 — Wisdom Cries in the Streets.
About this illustration
The composition centers wisdom cries in the streets as the chapter’s defining visual, using a unified, historically grounded scene while avoiding written text and any bodily depiction of God.
Scripture basis: Proverbs 1:1–33King James Version · Standardized 1769 text with Strong’s numbering · Public domain outside the United Kingdom
EXPLORE THE MESSAGE
Related Watchman 33 Resources
Archaeological Evidence
ARCHAEOLOGY EVIDENCEManuscript
Ancient Near Eastern or Second Temple period; see cited catalog
Masada Ben Sira Scroll
Mas1h preserves Ben Sira 39–44 in Hebrew from a securely bounded Masada context, confirming the work’s Hebrew textual history and its circulation among Judeans without deciding the boundaries of their canon.
Proverbs 1:1–7
ARCHAEOLOGY EVIDENCEManuscript
30 BC–AD 68
4QProverbsa (4Q102): Wisdom's Warning at Proverbs 1–2
A Cave 4 Hebrew fragment preserves the transition from Wisdom's warning in Proverbs 1:27–33 to the appeal to receive instruction in Proverbs 2:1.
Proverbs 1:27–33 · Proverbs 2:1
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