Proverbs 9  Living Bible

9 Wisdom has built a palace supported on seven pillars, ² and has prepared a great banquet, and mixed the wines, ³ and sent out her maidens inviting all to come. She calls from the busiest intersections in the city, ⁴ “Come, you simple ones without good judgment; ⁵ come to wisdom’s banquet and drink the wines that I have mixed. ⁶ Leave behind your foolishness and begin to live; learn how to be wise.”

^7-8 If you rebuke a mocker, you will only get a smart retort; yes, he will snarl at you. So don’t bother with him; he will only hate you for trying to help him. But a wise man, when rebuked, will love you all the more. ⁹ Teach a wise man, and he will be the wiser; teach a good man, and he will learn more. ¹⁰ For the reverence and fear of God are basic to all wisdom. Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding. ¹¹ “I, Wisdom, will make the hours of your day more profitable and the years of your life more fruitful.” ¹² Wisdom is its own reward, and if you scorn her, you hurt only yourself.

¹³ A prostitute is loud and brash and never has enough of lust and shame. ¹⁴ She sits at the door of her house or stands at the street corners of the city, ¹⁵ whispering to men going by and to those minding their own business. ¹⁶ “Come home with me,” she urges simpletons. ¹⁷ “Stolen melons^[a] are the sweetest; stolen apples taste the best!” ¹⁸ But they don’t realize that her former guests are now citizens of hell.