²⁰ Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets.

²¹ She crieth in the chief places of concourse, in the openings of the gates; in the city she uttereth her words, saying,

²² “How long, ye simple ones, will ye love to be simple, and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?

²³ Turn you at my reproof: Behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you; I will make known my words unto you.

²⁴ “Because I have called and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand and no man heeded,

²⁵ but ye have set at nought all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,

²⁶ I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh,

²⁷ when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind, when distress and anguish cometh upon you.

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

²⁹ because they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord.

³⁰ They would have none of my counsel, and they despised all my reproof:

³¹ therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own ways, and be filled with their own devices.

³² For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them;

³³ but whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and shall have quiet from fear of evil.”

¹³ A foolish woman is clamorous; she is simple and knoweth nothing.

¹⁴ For she sitteth at the door of her house on a seat in the high places of the city,

¹⁵ to call passers by who go rightly on their ways:

¹⁶ “Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither.” And as for him that lacketh understanding, she saith to him,

¹⁷ “Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.”

¹⁸ But he knoweth not that the dead are there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. The proverbs of Solomon: