7. The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning and the principal and choice part of knowledge [its starting point and its essence]; but fools despise skillful and godly Wisdom, instruction, and discipline. [Ps. 111:10.]
8. My son, hear the instruction of your father; reject not nor forsake the teaching of your mother.
9. For they are a [victor's] chaplet (garland) of grace upon your head and chains and pendants [of gold worn by kings] for your neck.
10. My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. [Ps. 1:1; Eph. 5:11.]
11. If they say, Come with us; let us lie in wait [to shed] blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause [and show that his piety is in vain];
12. Let us swallow them up alive as does Sheol (the place of the dead), and whole, as those who go down into the pit [of the dead];
13. We shall find and take all kinds of precious goods [when our victims are put out of the way], we shall fill our houses with plunder;
14. Throw in your lot with us [they insist] and be a sworn brother and comrade; let us all have one purse in common–
15. My son, do not walk in the way with them; restrain your foot from their path;
16. For their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed blood.
17. For in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird!
18. But [when these men set a trap for others] they are lying in wait for their own blood; they set an ambush for their own lives.
19. So are the ways of everyone who is greedy of gain; such [greed for plunder] takes away the lives of its possessors. [Prov. 15:27; I Tim. 6:10.]
20. Wisdom cries aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the markets;
21. She cries at the head of the noisy intersections [in the chief gathering places]; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
22. How long, O simple ones [open to evil], will you love being simple? And the scoffers delight in scoffing and [self-confident] fools hate knowledge?
23. If you will turn (repent) and give heed to my reproof, behold, I [Wisdom] will pour out my spirit upon you, I will make my words known to you. [Isa. 11:2; Eph. 1:17-20.]
24. Because I have called and you have refused [to answer], have stretched out my hand and no man has heeded it, [Isa. 65:11, 12; 66:4; Jer. 7:13, 14; Zech. 7:11-13.]
25. And you treated as nothing all my counsel and would accept none of my reproof,