PROVERBIALLY SPEAKING - PROVERBS CHAPTER 1

I've always enjoyed reading the King James Version of the Bible, because of it's literary and poetical qualities. I enjoy quoting it, and using "thee" and "thou", for the lyrical quality, which for me flows liltingly off the tongue, and gives the word a surreal quality, being expressly the voice of God, as if set apart from common speech, and elevated to a sacred difference. But I've realized over the years that not everyone shares this sense and sensibility of the text as literature. The average man, not common man, but regular guy, just wants to hear something practical, that relates to his everyday life, as the word from God who is ready, willing, an able to meet him right where he is here and now. So I have been letting go of my prejudice in favor of my brother's need, and learning to revise my quotations to more contemporary speech. I had a wonderful expectation when they first announced there was going to be a New King James Version, and I thought it was going to meet this need, but I was quickly and completely disappointed shortly after someone gave me a copy as a birthday present. During that same week, I was looking for a passage of scripture I had previously studied, and I could not find what I had read before. I realized the purveyors of  the NKJV had also presumptuosly taken it upon themselves to change not just the style of the language but also the words that were being used. Every word has a denotation which is the primary definition, and when we use that word as our source of reference we are also able to access all the attendant connotations to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit as He guides us into all truth. But when we replace a connotation for the denotation, that connotation does not support an adequate context to differentiate the subtleties of nuance God intends for us to experience. I read the passage over again a number of times and still I did not hear within my spirit the same interpretation as at the first, but when I finally returned to the original KJV there it was again, precisely rendered and consistentlt directive to the truth in which I had trusted. So in doing this study of the Book of Proverbs as a beginning place, I have attempted to quite simply change "thee" and "thou" to our modern "you", and replace "-eth" with "s". I have also tried to break up the phrases into their reasonable segments to facilitate our understanding as "rightly dividing" the Word into it's component parts. It is in the experimental stages so I will greatly appreciate your responses to the experience, although even a majority may not dissuade me from the personal efficacy it affords me. Thank you.


Proverbs 1




1The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;

2To know wisdom and instruction;

to perceive the words of understanding;

3To receive the instruction of wisdom,

justice, and judgment, and equity;

4To give subtlety to the simple,

to the young man knowledge and discretion.

5A wise man will hear, and will increase learning;

and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:

6To understand a proverb, and the interpretation;

the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.

7The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge:

but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

8My son, hear the instruction of thy father,

and forsake not the law of thy mother:

9For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head,

and chains about thy neck.

10My son, if sinners entice thee,

consent thou not.

11If they say, Come with us, let us lay wait for blood,

let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause:

12Let us swallow them up alive as the grave;


and whole, as those that go down into the pit:

13We shall find all precious substance,

we shall fill our houses with spoil:

14Cast in thy lot among us;

let us all have one purse:

15My son, walk not thou in the way with them;

refrain thy foot from their path:

16For their feet run to evil,

and make haste to shed blood.

17Surely in vain the net is spread

in the sight of any bird.

18And they lay wait for their own blood;

they lurk privily for their own lives.

19So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain;

which takes away the life of the owners thereof.


20Wisdom cries without; she utters her voice in the streets:

21She cries in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates:

in the city she utters her words, saying,

22How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?

and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

23Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you,

I will make known my words unto you.

24Because I have called, and ye refused;

I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

25But ye have set at nought all my counsel,

and would none of my reproof:

26I also will laugh at your calamity;

I will mock when your fear cometh;

27When your fear cometh as desolation,

and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind;

when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

28Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer;

they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me:

29For that they hated knowledge,

and did not choose the fear of the LORD:

30They would none of my counsel: they despised all my reproof.

31Therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way,

and be filled with their own devices.

32For the turning away of the simple shall slay them,

and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

33But whoso hearkens unto me shall dwell safely,


and shall be quiet from fear of evil.