Proverbs 8

¹Doth not wisdom cry, and prudence give her voice?

²Standing in the high & lofty tops over the way, in the midst of the paths,

³beside the gates of the city in the very doors she speaketh, saying:

⁴O men, to you I cry, and my voice is to the children of men.

⁵O little ones understand subtilty, and ye unwise mark.

⁶Hear ye, because I will speak of great things: and my lips shall be opened to preach right things.

⁷My throat shall meditate truth, and my lips shall detest the impious.

⁸All my words are just, there is no wicked, nor perverse thing in them.

⁹They are right to them that understand, and just to them that find knowledge.

¹⁰Receive ye discipline, & not money: choose doctrine rather than gold.

¹¹For wisdom is better than all most precious riches: and whatsoever is to be desired cannot be compared to it.

¹²I wisdom dwell in counsel, and am present in learned cogitations.

¹³The fear of our Lord hateth evil: arrogancy, and pride, and wicked way, and a double tongued mouth I do detest.

¹⁴Mine is counsel & equity, prudence is mine, strength is mine.

¹⁵By me kings do reign, and the makers of laws decree just things.

¹⁶By me Princes rule, and the mighty decree justice.

¹⁷I love them that love me: and they that watch toward me shall find me.

¹⁸With me are riches, and glory, glorious riches, and justice.

¹⁹For my fruit is better than gold and precious stone, and my blossoms than chosen silver.

²⁰I walk in the ways of justice, in the midst of the paths of judgment,

²¹that I may enrich them that love me, and may replenish their treasures.

²²Our Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways, before he had made any thing from the beginning.

²³From eternity I was ordained & of old before the earth was made.

²⁴The depths were not as yet, and I was now conceived, neither had the fountains of waters as yet gushed forth:

²⁵the mountains with heavy hugeness stood not as yet: before the little hills I was brought forth:

²⁶he had not yet made the earth, and the rivers, and the poles of the round world.

²⁷When he prepared the heavens, I was present: when with a certain law and circuit he compassed the depths:

²⁸When he established the firmament above, & poised the fountains of waters:

²⁹when he compassed the sea with her limits, and set a law to the waters that they should not pass their bounds: when he hanged the foundations of the earth,

³⁰I was with him framing all things: and was delighted every day, playing before him at all time,

³¹playing in the world: & my delights to be with the children of men.

³²Now therefore children hear me: Blessed are they that keep my ways.

³³Hear ye discipline, and be wise, and reject it not.

³⁴Blessed is the man that heareth me, & that watcheth at my doors daily, & waiteth at the posts of my door.

³⁵He that shall find me shall find life, and shall draw salvation of our Lord:

³⁶but he that shall sin against me, shall hurt his own soul. All that hate me, love death.