68 Bible Verses about Folly, Effects Of

Fear of Yahweh [is the] beginning of knowledge; wisdom and instruction, fools despise.

And to the human beings he said, 'Look, the fear of the Lord [is] wisdom, and to depart from evil [is] understanding.'"

[The] fool says in his heart, "There is no God." They are corrupt. They do abominable deeds. There is none who does good.

I will hear what God, Yahweh, will speak, because he will speak peace to his people, even his faithful [ones], but let them not return to folly.

The fear of Yahweh [is the] beginning of wisdom; all who do them have a good understanding. His praise endures forever.

Wisdom calls out in the streets, in the squares she raises her voice. On a {busy corner} she cries out, at the entrances of the gates in the city, she speaks her sayings: "{How long}, O simple ones, will you love simplicity? And [how long] will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge?read more.
May you turn to my argument! Behold, I shall pour out my spirit upon you; I will make my words known to you. Because I called out and you refused me, I stretched out my hand, yet there is none who heeds. You have ignored all my counsel, and my reproof you are not willing [to accept]. I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when panic comes [upon] you. When your panic comes like a storm, and your calamity arrives like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you,

He who loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates rebuke [is] stupid.

A fool will not take pleasure in understanding, but in expressing his heart.

Because of this do not become foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord [is].

[The] brutish man does not know, and [the] fool cannot understand this.

Then I said, "[They are] just simple people, they are foolish, for they know not the way of Yahweh, the law of their God.

But the Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but your inside is full of greediness and wickedness. Fools! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also?

For [although they] knew God, they did not honor [him] as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasoning, and their senseless hearts were darkened.

Foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

But avoid foolish and uninformed controversies, [because you] know that they produce quarrels.

But avoid foolish controversies and genealogies and contentions and quarrels about the law, for they are useless and fruitless.

Fools, because of their rebellious way and their iniquities, were afflicted.

Hear this please, foolish and {senseless} people, {who have eyes} but do not see, {who have ears} but do not hear.' Do you not revere me?" {declares} Yahweh, "Do you not tremble {before me}? For I have placed [the] sand [as] a boundary for the sea, {as an everlasting limit}, and it cannot pass over it, and they rise and fall loudly, but they cannot prevail, and its waves roar, but they cannot pass over it. But for this people is a stubborn and rebellious heart, they have turned aside and have gone [away].read more.
And they do not say in their hearts, 'Let us fear please Yahweh our God, the [one who] gives [the] autumn rain and [the] spring rain in its season, {the set times of the harvest} he keeps for us.' Your iniquities have disturbed these, and your sins have kept away the good from you.

He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be saved.

He who trusts in his wealth [is] he who will fall, but like a green leaf the righteous will flourish.

The way of a fool is upright in his [own] eyes, but he who listens to advice [is] wise.

There is a way [that seems] upright {to} a man, but its end [is] the way of death.

But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your life is demanded from you, and [the things] which you have prepared--whose will they be?'

O God, {you yourself know} my foolishness, and my guilty deeds are not hidden from you.

A clever person conceals knowledge, but the heart of a fool announces folly.

Anyone who is clever will act with intelligence, but the fool will display folly.

The tongue of the wise will dispense knowledge, but the mouth of fools will pour out folly.

But they will not progress to a greater extent, for their folly will be quite evident to everyone, as also the [folly] of those [two] was.

The wisdom of the clever is understanding his ways, but the folly of fools is deceit.

The simple will believe every word, but the clever will consider his step.

And I saw among the simple, I observed among the youth, a young man lacking {sense}, passing on the street {at} her corner, and he takes the road [to] her house, at twilight, at [the] day's evening, in [the] midst of night and the darkness.read more.
Then behold! A woman [comes] to meet him [with the] garment of a prostitute and {a secret heart}. She is loud and stubborn; her feet do not stay at her house. Now in the street, now in the square, {at} every corner she lies in wait. She took hold of him and kissed him. Her face was impudent, and she said to him, "Sacrifices of peace offerings [are] upon me; {today} I completed my vows. So I have come out to meet you, to seek your face, and I have found you. [With] coverings I have adorned my couch, spreads of the linen of Egypt; I have perfumed my bed [with] myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Come, let us take [our] fill of love making, until the morning let us delight in love. For there is no man in his home; he has gone on a {long journey}. The bag of money he took in his hand, for [on] the day of the full moon he will come home." She persuades him with the greatness of her teachings; with her smooth lips she compels him. He goes after her suddenly; like an ox to the slaughter he goes, and like a stag to the instruction of a fool, until an arrow pierces his {entrails}, like a bird rushing into a snare, but he does not know that {it will cost him his life}.

A woman of foolishness is loud, simple, and does not know {it}. She sits at the door of her house, upon a throne [at the] high places of town, [in order] to call to those who pass by the road, those who go straight [on] their way:read more.
"Whoever is simple, may he turn here!" As for he who lacks {sense}, she says to him, "Stolen waters are sweet, and bread of secrecy is pleasant." But he does not know that the dead [are] there, in the depths of Sheol [are] her guests.

Ephraim was like a dove, silly, {without sense}; they call [to] Egypt, they go [to] Assyria.

O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed [as] having been crucified?

The clever sees danger and hides, but the simple go on and suffer.

But [while] they had gone away to buy [it] the bridegroom arrived, and those who were ready went inside with him to the wedding celebration, and the door was shut.

for the waywardness of the simple ones will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them.

He shall die {for lack of} discipline, and in the greatness of his folly he shall be lost.

A heart of wisdom will heed commandments, but a babbling fool will come to ruin.

But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge those people into ruin and destruction.

They will inherit the honor of the wise, but stubborn fools, disgrace.

He who returns a word before he will hear, folly itself [belongs] to him as well as shame.

All those who form an idol [are] nothing, and their delightful things do not profit. And their witnesses do not see or know, so they will be ashamed.

[The] wise will be put to shame, they will be dismayed, and they will get taken. Look, they have rejected the word of Yahweh, and what [is] wisdom to them?

A grief to his father [is] the child of a fool, and bitterness to her who bore him.

The proverbs of Solomon: A wise child makes a father glad, but a foolish child grieves his mother.

A child of wisdom will make a father glad, but a {foolish person}, he despises his mother.

He who begets a fool, [there is] trouble for him; the father of a fool will not rejoice.

A fountain of life is wisdom for its owner, but the instruction of fools is folly.

My wounds start to stink; they rot because of my foolishness.

The lips of a fool will bring strife, and his mouth calls out for a flogging.

A whip for the horse, a bridle for the donkey, and a rod for the back of fools.

And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness. [The] unclean shall not travel through it, but it [is] for them, he who walks [on the] way; and fools shall not wander about.

But [while] they had gone away to buy [it] the bridegroom arrived, and those who were ready went inside with him to the wedding celebration, and the door was shut. And later the other virgins came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open [the door] for us!' But he answered [and] said, 'Truly I say to you, I do not know you!'

If you crush a fool in the mortar with the pestle {along with} the crushed grain, it will not drive folly from upon him.

The heart of him who understands will seek knowledge, but the faces of fools, they will feed on folly.

Like a dog returning to his vomit [is] a fool reverting to his folly.

So Aaron said to Moses, "Please, my lord, please do not put on us [this] sin [in] which we were foolish and [in] which we have sinned.

{So then}, take for yourselves seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job and offer a burnt offering for yourselves. And my servant Job will pray for you, for {I will certainly accept his prayer}, so that it will not be done with you [according to your] folly, for you have not spoken to me what is right as my servant Job [has]."

For we also were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, enslaved to various desires and pleasures, spending our lives in wickedness and envy, despicable, hating one another. But when the kindness and love for mankind of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not by deeds of righteousness that we have done, but because of his mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit,

The scoffer you shall strike, and the simple, may they learn prudence, and reprove the intelligent [and] he will gain knowledge.

With the punishment of a scoffer, the simple will become wise, and with the instruction of the wise, he will obtain knowledge.

Folly is bound up in the heart of a boy; [the] rod of discipline will drive it from him.

As for a rod and reproof, they will give wisdom, but a neglected child is disgraced [by] his mother.

Learn prudence, O simple ones; fools, learn {intelligence}.

In the heart of him who has understanding, wisdom rests, but [even] in the midst of fools it becomes known.

And those who err [in] spirit will {acquire} understanding, and those who grumble will learn instruction.

an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of the immature, having the embodiment of knowledge and of the truth in the law.