Authorship. Purpose
(Proverbs 9:1-12)
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Proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
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For knowing wisdom and instruction, || For understanding sayings of intelligence,
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For receiving the instruction of wisdom, || Righteousness, judgment, and uprightness,
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For giving to simple ones—prudence, || To a youth—knowledge and discretion.
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(The wise hear and increase learning, || And the intelligent obtain counsels.)
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For understanding a proverb and its sweetness, || Words of the wise and their acute sayings.
Main theme. Warnings against violence
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Fear of YHWH [is the] beginning of knowledge, || Fools have despised wisdom and instruction!
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Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, || And do not leave the law of your mother,
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For they [are] a graceful wreath to your head, || And chains to your neck.
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My son, if sinners entice you, do not be willing.
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If they say, “Come with us, we lay wait for blood, || We watch secretly for the innocent without cause,
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We swallow them as Sheol—alive, || And whole—as those going down [to] the pit,
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We find every precious substance, || We fill our houses [with] spoil,
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You cast your lot among us, || One purse is—to all of us.”
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My son! Do not go in the way with them, || Withhold your foot from their path,
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For their feet run to evil, || And they hurry to shed blood.
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Surely in vain is the net spread out before the eyes of any bird.
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And they lay wait for their own blood, || They watch secretly for their own lives.
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So [are] the paths of every gainer of dishonest gain, || It takes the life of its owners.
Warning against neglecting wisdom
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Wisdom cries aloud in an out-place, || She gives forth her voice in broad places,
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She calls at the head of the multitudes, || In the openings of the gates, || In the city she says her sayings:
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“Until when, you simple, do you love simplicity? And have scorners desired their scorning? And do fools hate knowledge?
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Turn back at my reproof, behold, || I pour forth my spirit to you, || I make known my words with you.
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Because I have called, and you refuse, || I stretched out my hand, and none is attending,
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And you slight all my counsel, || And you have not desired my reproof.
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I also laugh in your calamity, || I deride when your fear comes,
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When your fear comes as destruction, || And your calamity comes as a windstorm, || When adversity and distress come on you.
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Then they call me, and I do not answer, || They seek me earnestly, and do not find me.
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Because that they have hated knowledge, || And have not chosen the fear of YHWH.
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They have not consented to my counsel, || They have despised all my reproof,
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And they eat of the fruit of their way, || And they are filled from their own counsels.
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For the turning of the simple slays them, || And the security of the foolish destroys them.
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And whoever is listening to me dwells confidently, || And [is] quiet from fear of evil!”
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