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9:1  Wisdom has built her house; she has hewn out and set up her seven [perfect number of] pillars.
9:2  She has killed her beasts, she has mixed her [spiritual] wine; she has also set her table.
9:3  She has sent out her maids to cry from the highest places of the town:
9:4  Whoever is simple (easily led astray and wavering), let him turn in here! As for him who lacks understanding, [God’s] Wisdom says to him,
9:5  Come, eat of my bread and drink of the [spiritual] wine which I have mixed.
9:6  Leave off, simple ones [forsake the foolish and simpleminded] and live! And walk in the way of insight and understanding.
9:7  He who rebukes a scorner heaps upon himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man gets for himself bruises.
9:8  Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
9:9  Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser; teach a righteous man (one upright and in right standing with God) and he will increase in learning.
9:10  The reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord is the beginning (the chief and choice part) of Wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight and understanding.
9:11  For by me [Wisdom from God] your days shall be multiplied, and the years of your life shall be increased.
9:12  If you are wise, you are wise for yourself; if you scorn, you alone will bear it and pay the penalty.
9:13  The foolish woman is noisy; she is simple and open to all forms of evil, she [willfully and recklessly] knows nothing whatever [of eternal value].
9:14  For she sits at the door of her house or on a seat in the conspicuous places of the town,
9:15  Calling to those who pass by, who go uprightly on their way:
9:16  Whoever is simple (wavering and easily led astray), let him turn in here! And as for him who lacks understanding, she says to him,
9:17  Stolen waters (pleasures) are sweet [because they are forbidden]; and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.
9:18  But he knows not that the shades of the dead are there [specters haunting the scene of past transgressions], and that her invited guests are [already sunk] in the depths of Sheol (the lower world, Hades, the place of the dead).