Wisdom 1

¹ Love justice, you who judge the land. Think of the Lord in goodness and seek him in simplicity of heart.

² For he is found by those who do not test him, yet he reveals himself to those who have faith in him.

³ For perverse thoughts separate from God. But his virtue, when it is tested, corrects the foolish.

⁴ For wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subdued by sin.

⁵ For the holy spirit of instruction will flee from falsehood, and he will withdraw himself from thoughts that are without understanding, and he will not be reached when iniquity overcomes.

⁶ For the spirit of wisdom is benevolent, and will not release the evil speaker from his talk, because God is a witness of his temperament, and a true examiner of his heart, and an auditor of his words.

⁷ For the spirit of the Lord has filled the world, and he who contains all things, retains knowledge of every voice.

⁸ Therefore, he who speaks unjust things cannot escape notice, nor will the chastising judgment pass him by.

⁹ For inquiry will be made into the thoughts of the impious, his conversation also will reach the hearing of God, to the chastising of his iniquities.

¹⁰ For the zealous ear hears all things, and the disturbance of complaining will not be hidden.

¹¹ Therefore, keep yourselves from complaining, which benefits nothing, and refrain your tongue from slander, because secret conversation will not pass into nothingness, and the mouth that deceives kills the soul.

¹² Do not court death by the error of your life, nor procure your destruction by the works of your hands,

¹³ because God did not make death, nor does he rejoice in the loss of the living.

¹⁴ For he created all things that they might exist, and he made the nations of the world curable, and there is no medicine of extermination in them, nor a kingdom of hell upon the earth.

¹⁵ For justice is perpetual and immortal.

¹⁶ But the impious, with hands and words, have called death to them, and, esteeming it a friend, they have fallen away and have made a covenant with death, because they deserved to take part in it.