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The Gifts of Wisdom

Does not wisdom call,
    Does not understanding raise her voice?
On the heights beside the way,
    in the paths she takes her stand;
beside the gates in front of the town,
    at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud:
“To you, O men, I call,
    and my cry is to the sons of men.

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Wisdom’s Part in Creation

22 The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,[a]
    the first of his acts of old.
23 Ages ago I was set up,
    at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
    when there were no springs abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
    before the hills, I was brought forth;
26 before he had made the earth with its fields,[b]
    or the first of the dust[c] of the world.
27 When he established the heavens, I was there,
    when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when he made firm the skies above,
    when he established[d] the fountains of the deep,
29 when he assigned to the sea its limit,
    so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
30     then I was beside him, like a master workman;[e]
and I was daily his[f] delight,
    rejoicing before him always,
31 rejoicing in his inhabited world
    and delighting in the sons of men.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 8:22 Heb way
  2. Proverbs 8:26 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
  3. Proverbs 8:26 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
  4. Proverbs 8:28 The meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain
  5. Proverbs 8:30 Another reading is little child
  6. Proverbs 8:30 Gk: Heb lacks his

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