My son, if you accept my words, keep in your heart my commandments, make your ears receptive to wisdom, apply your mind to comprehension, and yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, and if you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasure, then you will know reverence for the divine and gain the knowledge of God. For it is Jehovah who imparts wisdom and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
He has reserved cherished wisdom for the righteous and is a shield for those who walk with rectitude, for he guards the paths of justice and watches over the ways traveled by those faithful to him. Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and fairness — indeed, every correct path to take. For wisdom will enter your mind and knowledge will bring pleasure to your being. Discretion will preserve you and understanding will guard you. Wisdom will deliver you from the ways of wicked men, who speak perversely, have departed from the way that is straight to wander down dark paths, who delight in wrong-doing, rejoice in the perversities of evil, whose paths are crooked and whose ways are devious.
Wisdom will protect you from the exotic woman, the seductive flattery of the adulteress who has abandoned the husband she wed when young and has ignored the vows of marriage made before God, for her house leads to death and her path, to the realm of departed spirits. None who go to her return or regain the paths of life.
Follow then the ways of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous, for the upright will inhabit the land and the blameless will remain in it. But the wicked will be driven off the land, and the treacherous will be uprooted from it.
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Chapter One
For gaining wisdom and instruction, understanding words of insight, the teaching of wise behavior, righteousness, justice, and integrity, lending prudence to the naive, knowledge and discretion to the young. Let the wise listen and increase their wisdom, let men of discernment obtain guidance. Let them understand the meaning of proverbs and parables, the sayings of the wise and their riddles.
Reverence for Jehovah is the starting point for the acquisition of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. Listen, my son, to the instruction of your father and do not ignore the teaching of your mother. They are a laurel wreath upon your head, a gold medal round your neck.
My son, if sinners seduce you, do not give in to them. If they say to you, “Come with us. Let’s hide in ambush and kill some innocent persons for kicks. We’ll swallow them alive like the grave, swallow them whole like those that go down to the Pit. We’ll find all sorts of valuable property and fill our houses with plunder. Throw in with us and we’ll share the loot equally.” My son, do not go along with them; don’t set foot upon their path, for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood.
It is futile to spread a net in full view of any bird, but these men lie in wait to shed their own blood; they hide to ambush their own lives. Such is the fate of all who acquire dishonest gain: it destroys the life of its possessor.
Wisdom cries out in the open and raises her voice in the public square. At the intersection of busy streets she calls out. At the entrance to the city gates she utters her words. “How long, you simpletons, will you love simple-mindedness? How long will mockers take pleasure in their mockery and fools hate knowledge?"
Respond to my reprimand — for, look, I will pour out my mind and make my thoughts known to you. However, I have called out to you and you have refused to listen. I have stretched out my hand, but none of you would take it. All my advice you have disregarded and my reproofs you did not want. Therefore, I will laugh at you when calamity strikes and mock you when terror comes upon you, when disaster overtakes you like a storm, when destruction engulfs you like a whirlwind and distress and anguish overwhelm you.
Then they will call out to me, but I won’t answer. They will diligently seek me, but they will not find me, because they hated knowledge and chose not to revere Jehovah. They rejected my advice and spurned all my criticisms. Therefore, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be stuffed full of their own counsel. The backsliding of the simpleton will kill him. The smugness of the fool will destroy him. But whoever will listen to me will live in security and tranquility, untroubled by the fear of evil.
Reverence for Jehovah is the starting point for the acquisition of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and discipline. Listen, my son, to the instruction of your father and do not ignore the teaching of your mother. They are a laurel wreath upon your head, a gold medal round your neck.
My son, if sinners seduce you, do not give in to them. If they say to you, “Come with us. Let’s hide in ambush and kill some innocent persons for kicks. We’ll swallow them alive like the grave, swallow them whole like those that go down to the Pit. We’ll find all sorts of valuable property and fill our houses with plunder. Throw in with us and we’ll share the loot equally.” My son, do not go along with them; don’t set foot upon their path, for their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed blood.
It is futile to spread a net in full view of any bird, but these men lie in wait to shed their own blood; they hide to ambush their own lives. Such is the fate of all who acquire dishonest gain: it destroys the life of its possessor.
Wisdom cries out in the open and raises her voice in the public square. At the intersection of busy streets she calls out. At the entrance to the city gates she utters her words. “How long, you simpletons, will you love simple-mindedness? How long will mockers take pleasure in their mockery and fools hate knowledge?"
Respond to my reprimand — for, look, I will pour out my mind and make my thoughts known to you. However, I have called out to you and you have refused to listen. I have stretched out my hand, but none of you would take it. All my advice you have disregarded and my reproofs you did not want. Therefore, I will laugh at you when calamity strikes and mock you when terror comes upon you, when disaster overtakes you like a storm, when destruction engulfs you like a whirlwind and distress and anguish overwhelm you.
Then they will call out to me, but I won’t answer. They will diligently seek me, but they will not find me, because they hated knowledge and chose not to revere Jehovah. They rejected my advice and spurned all my criticisms. Therefore, they will eat the fruit of their ways and be stuffed full of their own counsel. The backsliding of the simpleton will kill him. The smugness of the fool will destroy him. But whoever will listen to me will live in security and tranquility, untroubled by the fear of evil.
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