Poetry

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Moral Benefits of Wisdom

1 My son, if you accept my words
and store up my commands within you,

My son, if you accept my words
They will move your life forewords,
And if within my commands you store,
That will move you onwards even more.


2 turning your ear to wisdom
and applying your heart to understanding,

If to wisdom you turn your ear,
You will move forward in high gear,
And if to understanding you apply your heart,
You will be listed among the truly smart.

3 and if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,

And if you call out for insight,
You will be amazingly bright,
And if to understand you cry aloud,
You will separate yourself from the crowd.

4 and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.

And if you look for understanding as for treasure,
You will taste God's blessings beyond all measure,
For you will understand the fear of the Lord,
And in your heart the knowledge of God will be stored.

6 For the LORD gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

For the Lord gives wisdom and so much more,
For from his mouth comes truth and insight galore.
All the knowledge that ever needs to be heard,
Will come from the revelation He shares in his Word.


7 He holds victory in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
8 for he guards the course of the just
and protects the way of his faithful ones.


For the upright he holds victory in store,
And shielding the blameless is for him not a chore.
He guards completely the course of the just,
For protecting his faithful ones is for him a must.

9 Then you will understand what is right and just
and fair—every good path.

You will then grasp without logic or math,
Which way to walk in every good path,
For you will know what is right, just and fair,
And be able to avoid the fool's every snare.

10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.

The power of wisdom will enter your heart,
And God's knowledge will fill your inner most part.
Discretion will protect you and keep you unscarred,
And understanding will be your life long guard.

12 Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
13 who leave the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,

Wisdom will save you from wicked men's ways,
And from their deceiving words which all truth betrays,
For they forsake the path of light and walk in the dark,
And never on the right path do they choose to embark.

14 who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.

They find that doing wrong gives them delight,
And so they rejoice when they do evil things in the night.
They walk in crooked paths, and never in the straight,
And in this pattern of evil ways they never deviate.

16 It will save you also from the adulteress,
from the wayward wife with her seductive words
17 who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.

Wisdom will save you from the greatest threat of all,
The seductive woman for whom so many men fall.
She has abandoned her mate with whom she is bored,
And her promise before God she has completely ignored.

18 For her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
19 None who go to her return
or attain the paths of life.

You will find her house at a dead end,
And that too is where her victims finally end.
Those who go to her God's law fully spurn,
And they back to life's path will not return.


20 Thus you will walk in the ways of good men
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright will live in the land,
and the blameless will remain in it;

Wise and good men walk the narrow and straight,
And their righteous path leads to a much different state,
For they will live the upright life in the land,
Walking blameless always under God's command.

22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the unfaithful will be torn from it.

The wicked, however, will from the land be cut,
For the door to God's best is now forever shut.
The unfaithful will from the land be torn,
And better for them had they never been born.

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