5. The wise also will hear and increase in learning, and the person of understanding will acquire skill and attain to sound counsel [so that he may be able to steer his course rightly]–[Prov. 9:9.]
6. That people may understand a proverb and a figure of speech or an enigma with its interpretation, and the words of the wise and their dark sayings or riddles.
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: