150:3. Praise him with the sound of trumpet: praise him with psaltery and harp.
150:4. Praise him with timbrel and choir: praise him with strings and organs.
150:5. Praise him on high sounding cymbals: praise him on cymbals of joy: let every spirit praise the Lord. Alleluia.
THE BOOK OF PROVERBS
This Book is so called, because it consists of wise and weighty sentences: regulating the morals of men: and directing them to wisdom and virtue. And these sentences are also called PARABLES, because great truths are often couched in them under certain figures and similitudes.
Proverbs Chapter 1
The use and end of the proverbs. An exhortation to flee the company of the wicked: and to hearken to the voice of wisdom.
1:1. The parables of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel,
1:2. To know wisdom, and instruction:
1:3. To understand the words of prudence: and to receive the instruction of doctrine, justice, and judgment, and equity:
1:4. To give subtilty to little ones, to the young man knowledge and understanding.
1:5. A wise man shall hear, and shall be wiser: and he that understandeth shall possess governments.
1:6. He shall understand a parable and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their mysterious sayings.
1:7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.
1:8. My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:
1:9. That grace may be added to thy head, and a chain of gold to thy neck.
1:10. My son, if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them.
1:11. If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause:
1:12. Let us swallow him up alive like h.e.l.l, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit.
1:13. We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils.
1:14. Cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse.
1:15. My son, walk not thou with them, restrain thy foot from their paths.
1:16. For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.
1:17. But a net is spread in vain before the eyes of them that have wings.
1:18. And they themselves lie in wait for their own blood, and practise deceits against their own souls.
1:19. So the ways of every covetous man destroy the souls of the possessors.
1:20. Wisdom preacheth abroad, she uttereth her voice in the streets:
1:21. At the head of mult.i.tudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying:
1:22. O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?
1:23. Turn ye at my reproof: behold I will utter my spirit to you, and will shew you my words.
1:24. Because I called, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded.
1:25. You have despised all my counsel, and have neglected my reprehensions.
1:26. I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when that shall come to you which you feared.
1:27. When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction, as a tempest, shall be at hand: when tribulation and distress shall come upon you:
1:28. Then shall they call upon me, and I will not hear: they shall rise in the morning, and shall not find me:
1:29. Because they have hated instruction, and received not the fear of the Lord,
1:30. Nor consented to my counsel, but despised all my reproof.
1:31. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, and shall be filled with their own devices.
1:32. The turning away of little ones shall kill them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.
1:33. But he that shall hear me, shall rest without terror, and shall enjoy abundance, without fear of evils.
Proverbs Chapter 2
The advantages of wisdom: and the evils from which it delivers.
2:1. My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and wilt hide my commandments with thee,
2:2. That thy ear may hearken to wisdom: incline thy heart to know prudence.
2:3. For if thou shalt call for wisdom, and incline thy heart to prudence:
2:4. If thou shalt seek her as money, and shalt dig for her as for a treasure:
2:5. Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and shalt find the knowledge of G.o.d: