¹ For behold in those days, and in that time when I shall bring back the captivity of Juda and Jerusalem:

² I will gather together all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Josaphat: and I will plead with them there for my people, and for my inheritance Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and have parted my land.

³ And they have cast lots upon my people: and the boy they have put in the stews, and the girl they have sold for wine, that they might drink.

⁴ But what have you to do with me, O Tyre, and Sidon, and all the coast of the Philistines? will you revenge yourselves on me? and if you revenge yourselves on me, I will very soon return you a recompense upon your own head.

⁵ For you have taken away my silver and my gold: and my desirable and most beautiful things you have carried into your temples.

⁶ And the children of Juda, and the children of Jerusalem you have sold to the children of the Greeks, that you might remove them far off from their own country.

⁷ Behold, I will raise them up out of the place wherein you have sold them: and I will return your recompense upon your own heads.

⁸ And I will sell your sons, and your daughters by the hands of the children of Juda, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, a nation far off, for the Lord hath spoken it.

⁹ Proclaim ye this among the nations: prepare war, rouse up the strong: let them come, let all the men of war come up.

¹⁰ Cut your ploughshares into swords, and your spades into spears. Let the weak say: I am strong.

¹¹ Break forth, and come, all ye nations, from round about, and gather yourselves together: there will the Lord cause all thy strong ones to fall down.

¹² Let them arise, and let the nations come up into the valley of Josaphat: for there I will sit to judge all nations round about.

¹³ Put ye in the sickles, for the harvest is ripe: come and go down, for the press is full, the fats run over: for their wickedness is multiplied.

¹⁴ Nations, nations in the valley of destruction: for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of destruction.

¹⁵ The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars have withdrawn their shining.

¹⁶ And the Lord shall roar out of Sion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem: and the heavens and the earth shall be moved, and the Lord shall be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel.

¹⁷ And you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Sion my holy mountain: and Jerusalem shall be holy and strangers shall pass through it no more.

¹⁸ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweetness, and the hills shall flow with milk: and waters shall flow through all the rivers of Juda: and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord, and shall water the torrent of thorns.

¹⁹ Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a wilderness destroyed: because they have done unjustly against the children of Juda, and have shed innocent blood in their land.

²⁰ And Judea shall be inhabited for ever, and Jerusalem to generation and generation.

²¹ And I will cleanse their blood which I had not cleansed: and the Lord will dwell in Sion.

¹ The parables of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.

² To know wisdom, and instruction:

³ To understand the words of prudence: and to receive the instruction of doctrine, justice, and judgment, and equity:

⁴ To give subtilty to little ones, to the young man knowledge and understanding.

⁵ A wise man shall hear and shall be wiser: and he that understandeth, shall possess governments.

⁶ He shall understand a parable, and the interpretation, the words of the wise, and their mysterious sayings.

⁷ The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

⁸ My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother :

⁹ That grace may be added to thy head, and a chain of gold to thy neck.

¹⁰ My son, if sinners shall entice thee, consent not to them.

¹¹ If they shall say: Come with us, let us lie in wait for blood, let us hide snares for the innocent without cause:

¹² Let us swallow him up alive like hell, and whole as one that goeth down into the pit.

¹³ We shall find all precious substance, we shall fill our houses with spoils.

¹⁴ Cast in thy lot with us, let us all have one purse.

¹⁵ My son, walk not thou with them, restrain thy foot from their paths.

¹⁶ For their feet run to evil, and make haste to shed blood.

¹⁷ But a net is spread in vain before the eyes of them that have wings.

¹⁸ And they themselves lie in wait for their own blood, and practise deceits against their own souls.

¹⁹ So the wage of every covetous man destroy the souls of the possessors.

²⁰ Wisdom preacheth abroad, she uttereth her voice in the streets:

²¹ At the head of multitudes she crieth out, in the entrance of the gates of the city she uttereth her words, saying:

²² O children, how long will you love childishness, and fools covet those things which are hurtful to themselves, and the unwise hate knowledge?

²³ Turn ye at my reproof: behold I will utter my spirit to you, and will shew you my words.

²⁴ Because I called, and you refused: I stretched out my hand, and there was none that regarded.

²⁵ You have despised all my counsel, and have neglected my reprehensions.

²⁶ I also will laugh in your destruction, and will mock when that shall come to you which you feared.

²⁷ When sudden calamity shall fall on you, and destruction, as a tempest, shall be at hand: when tribulation and distress shall come upon you:

²⁸ Then shall they call upon me, and I will not hear: they shall rise in the morning and shall not find me:

²⁹ Because they have hated instruction and received not the fear of the Lord,

³⁰ Nor consented to my counsel, but despised all my reproof.

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

³² The turning away of little ones shall kill them, and the prosperity of fools shall destroy them.

³³ But he that shall hear me, shall rest without terror, and shall enjoy abundance, without fear of evils.