God’s Wisdom

² To know wisdom and instruction,
To discern the sayings of understanding,
³ To receive instruction in wise behavior,
Righteousness, justice, and integrity;
⁴ To give prudence to the naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
⁵ A wise person will hear and increase in learning,
And a person of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
⁶ To understand a proverb and a saying,
The words of the wise and their riddles.

⁸ Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction,
And do not ignore your mother’s teaching;
⁹ For they are a graceful wreath for your head
And necklaces for your neck.
¹⁰ My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.
¹¹ If they say, “Come with us,
Let’s lie in wait for blood,
Let’s ambush the innocent without cause;
¹² Let’s swallow them alive like Sheol,
Even whole, like those who go down to the pit;
¹³ We will find all kinds of precious wealth,
We will fill our houses with plunder;
¹⁴ Throw in your lot with us;
We will all have one money bag,”
¹⁵ My son, do not walk on the way with them.
Keep your feet from their path,
¹⁶ For their feet run to evil,
And they are quick to shed blood.
¹⁷ Indeed, it is useless to spread the baited net
In the sight of any bird;
¹⁸ But they lie in wait for their own blood;
They ambush their own lives.
¹⁹ Such are the ways of everyone who makes unjust gain;
It takes away the life of its possessors.

²⁰ Wisdom shouts in the street,
She raises her voice in the public square;
²¹ At the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
At the entrance of the gates in the city she declares her sayings:
²² “How long, you naive ones, will you love simplistic thinking?
And how long will scoffers delight themselves in scoffing
And fools hate knowledge?
²³ Turn to my rebuke,
Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you;
I will make my words known to you.
²⁴ Because I called and you refused,
I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention;
²⁵ And you neglected all my advice
And did not want my rebuke;
²⁶ I will also laugh at your disaster;
I will mock when your dread comes,
²⁷ When your dread comes like a storm
And your disaster comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you.
²⁸ Then they will call on me, but I will not answer;
They will seek me diligently but will not find me,
²⁹ Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord.
³⁰ They did not accept my advice,
They disdainfully rejected every rebuke from me.
³¹ So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way,
And be filled with their own schemes.
³² For the faithlessness of the naive will kill them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
³³ But whoever listens to me will live securely
And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”