📜 WISDOM OF SOLOMON

📖 CHAPTER 1

Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth: think of the Lord with a good heart, and in simplicity of heart seek him.

For he will be found of them that tempt him not; and sheweth himself unto such as do not distrust him.

For froward thoughts separate from God: and his power, when it is tried, reproveth the unwise.

For into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter; nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin.

📖 CHAPTER 2

For the ungodly said, reasoning with themselves, but not aright:

“Our life is short and tedious, and in the death of a man there is no remedy.”

Come on therefore, let us enjoy the good things that are present.

Let us oppress the poor righteous man.

Let us condemn him with a shameful death.

📖 CHAPTER 3

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.

In the sight of the unwise they seemed to die: but they are in peace.

For though they be punished in the sight of men, yet is their hope full of immortality.

📖 CHAPTER 4

Better it is to have no children, and to have virtue.

For the memorial thereof is immortal.

But the multiplying brood of the ungodly shall not thrive.

📖 CHAPTER 5

Then shall the righteous man stand in great boldness before the face of such as have afflicted him.

And they shall be amazed at the strangeness of his salvation.

📖 CHAPTER 6

Wisdom is glorious, and never fadeth away: yea, she is easily seen of them that love her.

For she preventeth them that desire her, in making herself first known unto them.

📖 CHAPTER 7

I myself also am a mortal man, like to all, and the offspring of him that was first made of the earth.

And in my mother’s womb was fashioned to be flesh in the time of ten months, being compacted in blood.

And when I was born, I drew in the common air, and fell upon the earth, which is of like nature.

And I was nursed in swaddling clothes, and that with cares.

For there is no king that had any other beginning of birth.

For all men have one entrance into life, and the like going out.

Wherefore I prayed, and understanding was given me: I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me.

📖 CHAPTER 8

Wisdom reacheth from one end to another mightily: and sweetly doth she order all things.

I loved her, and sought her out from my youth.

I desired to make her my spouse.

She is conversant with God, and is the lover of his works.

📖 CHAPTER 9

O God of my fathers, and Lord of mercy, who hast made all things with thy word,

And ordained man through thy wisdom,

Give me wisdom, that sitteth by thy throne.

For I thy servant and son of thine handmaid am a feeble person.

📖 CHAPTER 10

Wisdom preserved the first formed father of the world.

She delivered him from his fall.

She preserved Noah, and guided him.

She prospered Abraham, and preserved Jacob.

📖 CHAPTER 11

She prospered their works in the hand of the holy prophet.

She made them to pass through the Red sea.

And when their enemies were thirsty, thou gavest them water out of the flinty rock.

📖 CHAPTER 12

For whom thou didst punish little by little, thou gavest them place of repentance.

Nevertheless thou didst judge their works with justice.

And though thou art Lord of all, yet dost thou judge with equity.

📖 CHAPTER 13

Surely vain are all men by nature, who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is:

Neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the workmaster;

But deemed either fire, or wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the violent water, or the lights of heaven, to be the gods which govern the world.

📖 CHAPTER 14

Again, if they supposed their gods to be the governors of the world, let them understand how much better the Lord of them is.

For the first author of beauty hath created them.

But miserable are they, and in dead things is their hope, who call them gods, which are the works of men’s hands.

📖 CHAPTER 15

But thou, O God, art gracious and true, longsuffering, and in mercy ordering all things.

For if we sin, we are thine, knowing thy power: but we will not sin, knowing that we are counted thine.

📖 CHAPTER 16

For the ungodly, that denied to know thee, were scourged by the strength of thine arm.

For they went astray, worshipping serpents and vile beasts, thou didst send a multitude of unreasonable beasts upon them for vengeance.

📖 CHAPTER 17

For great are thy judgments, and cannot be expressed: therefore unnurtured souls have erred.

For when unrighteous men thought to oppress the holy nation, they being shut up in their houses, the prisoners of darkness, were fettered with the bonds of a long night.

📖 CHAPTER 18

For when quiet silence compassed all things, and that night was in the midst of her swift course,

Thine almighty word leaped down from heaven out of thy royal throne.

And brought thine unfeigned commandment as a sharp sword.

📖 CHAPTER 19

For the creature that serveth thee, who art the maker, increaseth his strength against the unrighteous for their punishment,

And abateth his strength for the benefit of such as put their trust in thee.

For the whole creature in his proper kind was fashioned again anew.