Lady Wisdom's Warning to the Simple Youths

The voice, the invitation and the warning of personified lady wisdom is an important repeated motif in the book. She is characterized as a female figure at the gates and major thoroughfares calling to young men. The concluding section of the chapter contains both her message to the simple youths but also her reflection upon her message and its reception. Bruce Walkke suggests that verses 22 to 33 follow a bookended pattern. Verses 22 to 23 contain wisdom's exasperation with the unresponsive gullible and fools;verses 32 to 33 which correspond contain the death of the gullible and all fools.