Chapter 8

1 Does not wisdom cry out? and does not understanding lift up its voice?

2 She stands on high places, by the wayside, on the highways;

3 She cries out at the gate at the entrance to the city, at the entrance to the door:

4 "To you, O people, I cry, and to the children of men my voice!

5 Learn, you fools, prudence, and fools understanding.

6 Hear, for I will speak important things, and the utterance of my mouth is righteousness;

7 For my tongue shall speak the truth, and wickedness is an abomination to my mouth.

8 All the words of my mouth are just; there is no deceit or deceit in them;

9 All of them are clear to him who understands, and just to them that have acquired knowledge.

10 Receive my doctrine, and not silver; knowledge is better than choice gold;

11 For wisdom is better than pearls, and nothing that is desired compares to it.

12 I, O wisdom, dwell with understanding, and seek prudent knowledge.

13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and evil ways and deceitful lips I hate.

14 I have counsel and truth; I am the mind, I have the power.

15 By me kings reign, and rulers legitimize righteousness;

16 And the rulers and the nobles, and all the judges of the earth, rule over me.

17 Those who love me I love, and those who seek me will find me;

18 Riches and glory are with me, a treasure that does not perish, and righteousness;

19 My fruit is better than gold, and the purest gold, and I am more profitable than the choice silver.

20 I walk in the way of righteousness, in the paths of justice,

21 To give them that love me a great good, and their treasuries I fill. [When I declare the things that happen daily, I will not forget to count the things of the ages.]

22 The Lord had me as the beginning of his way, before his creatures, from time immemorial;

23 I have been anointed from everlasting, from the beginning, before the earth was.

24 I was born when the deep did not yet exist, when there were no springs abounding in water.

25 I was born before the mountains were raised, before the hills,

26 when he had not yet created the earth, nor the fields, nor the primordial specks of dust of the world.

E-27 When He was preparing the heavens, I was there. As He drew a circular line across the face of the abyss,