THE BOOK OF WISDOM
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
This Book is so called, because it treats of the excellence of WISDOM, the means to obtain it, and the happy fruits it produces. It is written in the person of Solomon, and contains his sentiments. But it is uncertain who was the writer. It abounds with instructions and exhortations to kings and all magistrates to minister justice in the commonwealth, teaching all kinds of virtues under the general names of justice and wisdom. It contains also many prophecies of Christ's coming, passion, resurrection, and other Christian mysteries. The whole may be divided into three parts. In the first six chapters, the author admonishes all superiors to love and exercise justice and wisdom. In the next three, he teacheth that wisdom proceedeth only from God, and is procured by prayer and a good life. In the other ten chapters, he sheweth the excellent effects and utility of wisdom and justice.
Wisdom Chapter 1
An exhortation to seek God sincerely, who cannot be deceived, and desireth not our death.
1:1. Love justice, you that are the judges of the earth. Think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in simplicity of heart:
1:2. For he is found by them that tempt him not: and he sheweth himself to them that have faith in him.
1:3. For perverse thoughts separate from God: and his power, when it is tried, reproveth the unwise:
1:4. For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins.
1:5. For the Holy Spirit of discipline will flee from the deceitful, and will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and he shall not abide when iniquity cometh in.
1:6. For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not acquit the evil speaker from his lips: for God is witness of his reins, and he is a true searcher of his heart, and a hearer of his tongue.
1:7. For the Spirit of the Lord hath filled the whole world: and that which containeth all things, hath knowledge of the voice.
1:8. Therefore he that speaketh unjust things, cannot be hid, neither shall the chastising judgment pass him by.
1:9. For inquisition shall be made into the thoughts of the ungodly, and the hearing of his words shall come to God, to the chastising of his iniquities.
1:10. For the ear of jealousy heareth all things, and the tumult of murmuring shall not be hid.
1:11. Keep yourselves, therefore, from murmuring, which profiteth nothing, and refrain your tongue from detraction, for an obscure speech shall not go for nought: and the mouth that belieth, killeth the soul.
1:12. Seek not death in the error of your life, neither procure ye destruction by the works of your hands.
1:13. For God made not death, neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living.
1:14. For he created all things that they might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth.
1:15. For justice is perpetual and immortal.
1:16. But the wicked with works and words have called it to them: and esteeming it a friend, have fallen away and have made a covenant with it: because they are worthy to be of the part thereof.
Wisdom Chapter 2
The vain reasonings of the wicked: their persecuting the just, especially the Son of God.
2:1. For they have said, reasoning with themselves, but not right: The time of our life is short and tedious, and in the end of a man there is no remedy, and no man hath been known to have returned from hell:
2:2. For we are born of nothing, and after this we shall be as if we had not been: for the breath in our nostrils is smoke: and speech a spark to move our heart,
2:3. Which being put out, our body shall be ashes, and our spirit shall be poured abroad as soft air, and our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and shall be dispersed as a mist, which is driven away by the beams of the sun, and overpowered with the heat thereof:
2:4. And our name in time shall be forgotten, and no man shall have any remembrance of our works.
2:5. For our time is as the passing of a shadow, and there is no going back of our end: for it is fast sealed, and no man returneth:
2:6. Come, therefore, and let us enjoy the good things that are present, and let us speedily use the creatures as in youth.
2:7. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine, and ointments: and let not the flower of the time pass by us.
2:8. Let us crown ourselves with roses, before they be withered: let no meadow escape our riot.
2:9. Let none of us go without his part in luxury: let us every where leave tokens of joy: for this is our portion, and this our lot.
2:10. Let us oppress the poor just man, and not spare the widow, nor honour the ancient grey hairs of the aged.
2:11. But let our strength be the law of justice: for that which is feeble is found to be nothing worth.
2:12. Let us, therefore, lie in wait for the just, because he is not for our turn, and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life.
2:13. He boasteth that he hath the knowledge of God, and calleth himself the son of God.
2:14. He is become a censurer of our thoughts.
2:15. He is grievous unto us, even to behold: for his life is not like other men's, and his ways are very different.
2:16. We are esteemed by him as triflers, and he abstaineth from our ways as from filthiness, and he preferreth the latter end of the just, and glorieth that he hath God for his father.
2:17. Let us see then if his words be true, and let us prove what shall happen to him, and we shall know what his end shall be.
2:18. For if he be the true son of God, he will defend him, and will deliver him from the hands of his enemies.
2:19. Let us examine him by outrages and tortures, that we may know his meekness, and try his patience.