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 equity;
⁴ To give prudence to the naive,
To the youth knowledge and discretion,
⁵ A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,
⁶ To understand a proverb and a figure,
The words of the wise and their riddles.

⁸ Hear, my son, your father’s instruction
And do not forsake your mother’s teaching;
⁹ Indeed, they are a graceful wreath to your head
And ornaments about your neck.
¹⁰ My son, if sinners entice you,
Do not consent.
¹¹ If they say, “Come with us,
Let us lie in wait for blood,
Let us ambush the innocent without cause;
¹² Let us swallow them alive like Sheol,
Even whole, as those who go down to the pit;
¹³ We will find all kinds of precious wealth,
We will fill our houses with spoil;
¹⁴ Throw in your lot with us,
We shall all have one purse,”
¹⁵ My son, do not walk in the way with them.
Keep your feet from their path,
¹⁶ For their feet run to evil
And they hasten 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 So are the ways of everyone who gains by violence;
It takes away the life of its possessors.

²⁰ Wisdom shouts in the street,
She lifts her voice in the square;
²¹ At the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:
²² “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded?
And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing
And fools hate knowledge?
²³ “Turn to my reproof,
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 counsel
And did not want my reproof;
²⁶ I will also laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when your dread comes,
²⁷ When your dread comes like a storm
And your calamity 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 they will not find me,
²⁹ Because they hated knowledge
And did not choose the fear of the Lord.
³⁰ “They would not accept my counsel,
They spurned all my reproof.
³¹ “So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way
And be satiated with their own devices.
³² “For the waywardness of the naive will kill them,
And the complacency of fools will destroy them.
³³ “But he who listens to me shall live securely
And will be at ease from the dread of evil.”