The Pursuit of Wisdom Brings Security

1My son, if you will receive my words
         And treasure my commandments within you,

2Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
         Incline your heart to understanding;

3For if you cry for discernment,
         Lift your voice for understanding;

4If you seek her as silver
         And search for her as for hidden treasures;

5Then you will discern the fear of the LORD
         And discover the knowledge of God.

6For the LORD gives wisdom;
         From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

7He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
         He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

8Guarding the paths of justice,
         And He preserves the way of His godly ones.

9Then you will discern righteousness and justice
         And equity and every good course.

10For wisdom will enter your heart
         And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

11Discretion will guard you,
         Understanding will watch over you,

12To deliver you from the way of evil,
         From the man who speaks perverse things;

13From those who leave the paths of uprightness
         To walk in the ways of darkness;

14Who delight in doing evil
         And rejoice in the perversity of evil;

15Whose paths are crooked,
         And who are devious in their ways;

16To deliver you from the strange woman,
         From the adulteress who flatters with her words;

17That leaves the companion of her youth
         And forgets the covenant of her God;

18For her house sinks down to death
         And her tracks lead to the dead;

19None who go to her return again,
         Nor do they reach the paths of life.

20So you will walk in the way of good men
         And keep to the paths of the righteous.

21For the upright will live in the land
         And the blameless will remain in it;

22But the wicked will be cut off from the land
         And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.

NASB ©1995

American Standard Version
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, And lay up my commandments with thee;

Douay-Rheims Bible
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and wilt hide my commandments with thee,

Darby Bible Translation
My son, if thou receivest my words, and layest up my commandments with thee,

English Revised Version
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and lay up my commandments with thee;

Webster's Bible Translation
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee;

World English Bible
My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you;

Young's Literal Translation
My son, if thou dost accept my sayings, And my commands dost lay up with thee,The Beginning and End of Wisdom
PROVERBS ii. 2, 3, 5. If thou incline thine ear to wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; yea, if thou criest after wisdom, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. We shall see something curious in the last of these verses, when we compare it with one in the chapter before. The chapter before says, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That if we wish to be wise at all, we must BEGIN by …
Charles Kingsley—The Good News of God

The Red Lamp.
Travelling by express train the other day, we found that we were stopped a long distance from the station where we were timed to stop, and looking out of the window, saw a red light ahead. That accounted for it, we knew there was something in the way. The driver knew what he was about, and though anxious to go on, did not move until the red light was changed to white. Some of those who read this paper are living in sin. To such, the Bible speaks out in plain terms, and, like the Red Light, would …
Thomas Champness—Broken Bread

Notes on the Fourth Century
Page 238. Med. 1. In the wording of this meditation, and of several other passages in the Fourth Century, it seems as though Traherne is speaking not of himself, but of, a friend and teacher of his. He did this, no doubt, in order that he might not lay himself open to the charge of over-egotism. Yet that he is throughout relating his own experiences is proved by the fact that this Meditation, as first written, contains passages which the author afterwards marked for omission. In its original form …
Thomas Traherne—Centuries of Meditations

Letter xxiv (Circa A. D. 1126) to Oger, Regular Canon
To Oger, Regular Canon [34] Bernard blames him for his resignation of his pastoral charge, although made from the love of a calm and pious life. None the less, he instructs him how, after becoming a private person, he ought to live in community. To Brother Oger, the Canon, Brother Bernard, monk but sinner, wishes that he may walk worthily of God even to the end, and embraces him with the fullest affection. 1. If I seem to have been too slow in replying to your letter, ascribe it to my not having …
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux—Some Letters of Saint Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux

Truth Hidden when not Sought After.
"They shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."--2 Tim. iv. 4. From these words of the blessed Apostle, written shortly before he suffered martyrdom, we learn, that there is such a thing as religious truth, and therefore there is such a thing as religious error. We learn that religious truth is one--and therefore that all views of religion but one are wrong. And we learn, moreover, that so it was to be (for his words are a prophecy) that professed Christians, …
John Henry Newman—Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII

Sundry Sharp Reproofs
This doctrine draws up a charge against several sorts: 1 Those that think themselves good Christians, yet have not learned this art of holy mourning. Luther calls mourning a rare herb'. Men have tears to shed for other things, but have none to spare for their sins. There are many murmurers, but few mourners. Most are like the stony ground which lacked moisture' (Luke 8:6). We have many cry out of hard times, but they are not sensible of hard hearts. Hot and dry is the worst temper of the body. Sure …
Thomas Watson—The Beatitudes: An Exposition of Matthew 5:1-12

Sunday Before Lent
Text: First Corinthians 13. 1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. 4 Love suffereth long, and is kind; love envieth not; love …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

The Knowledge of God
'The Lord is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.' I Sam 2:2. Glorious things are spoken of God; he transcends our thoughts, and the praises of angels. God's glory lies chiefly in his attributes, which are the several beams by which the divine nature shines forth. Among other of his orient excellencies, this is not the least, The Lord is a God of knowledge; or as the Hebrew word is, A God of knowledges.' Through the bright mirror of his own essence, he has a full idea and cognisance …
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God and his Righteousness," &C.
Matt. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness," &c. This is a part of Christ's long sermon. He is dissuading his disciples and the people from carnal carefulness and worldly mindedness. The sermon holds out the Christian's diverse aspects towards spiritual and external things. What is the Christian's disposition in regard to the world, how should he look upon food, raiment, and all things necessary in this life? "Be careful for nothing." "Take no thought for your life, …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Proverbs
Many specimens of the so-called Wisdom Literature are preserved for us in the book of Proverbs, for its contents are by no means confined to what we call proverbs. The first nine chapters constitute a continuous discourse, almost in the manner of a sermon; and of the last two chapters, ch. xxx. is largely made up of enigmas, and xxxi. is in part a description of the good housewife. All, however, are rightly subsumed under the idea of wisdom, which to the Hebrew had always moral relations. The Hebrew …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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