An exhortation to get the supreme thing
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📚Hear, you children, the instruction of a father,
and pay attention so as
to find understanding.
2 📚For I give you good teaching.
Do not forsake my law.
3 📚✭For I was my father’s son,
tender and the only one
in the sight of my mother.
4 📚And he taught me, and said to me,
“Let your heart retain my words.
Keep my commands, and live.
5 📚Get wisdom, get understanding.
Do not forget it or turn away
from the words of my mouth.
6 📚✭Do not forsake her,
and she will preserve you.
Love her, and she will keep you.
7 📚✭Wisdom is the principal thing.
Therefore get wisdom,
and with all your getting get understanding.
8 📚Exalt her, and she will set you on high.
She will bring you to honour,
when you embrace her.
9 📚She will give an ornament of grace
for your head;
she will provide a crown of glory to you”.
10 📚✭Hear, O my son,
and receive my words,
and the years of your life will be many.
11 📚I have taught you in the way of wisdom;
I have led you in right paths.
12 📚When you walk,
your steps will not be cramped,
and when you run, you will not stumble.
13 📚Take firm hold of instruction.
Do not let her go.
Keep her,
for she is your life.
14 📚Do not enter the path of the wicked,
and do not go in the way of evil people.
15 📚Avoid it. Do not travel on it.
Turn from it and pass on.
16 📚✭For they do not sleep unless
they have done evil,
and their sleep is taken away,
unless they cause someone to fall.
17 📚For they eat the bread of wickedness,
and drink the wine of violence.
18 📚But the path of the just is
like the shining light,
that shines more and more to the perfect day.
19 📚The way of the wicked is
like darkness.
They do not know over what they stumble.
20 📚My son, pay attention to my words.
Turn your ear to what I say.
21 📚Do not let them depart from your eyes.
Keep them in the center of your heart.
22 📚For they are life to those
who find them,
and health to their whole body.
23 📚✭Keep your heart with all watchfulness,
for out of it come the issues of life.
24 📚Put a crooked mouth away from you,
and put perverse lips far from you.
25 📚✭Let your eyes look right ahead,
and let your eyelids look straight before you.
26 📚Consider the path of your feet,
and let all your ways be established.
27 📚✭Do not turn to the right hand or to the left.
Turn away your foot from evil.