1 Kings 3:9
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
9 Give your servant, therefore, an understanding mind to govern your people, able to discern between good and evil, for who can govern this great people of yours?”(A)
Read full chapter
James 1:5
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you.(A)
Read full chapter
John 5:30
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Witnesses to Jesus
30 “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.(A)
Read full chapter
Proverbs 16:16
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
16 How much better to get wisdom than gold!
To get understanding is to be chosen rather than silver.(A)
Hebrews 5:14
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.(A)
Read full chapter
2 Samuel 14:17
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
17 Your servant thought, ‘The word of my lord the king will set me at rest,’ for my lord the king is like the angel of God, discerning good and evil. The Lord your God be with you!”(A)
Read full chapter
Proverbs 2:3-9
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
3 if you indeed cry out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures—(A)
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.(B)
6 For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;(C)
7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,(D)
8 guarding the paths of justice
and preserving the way of his faithful ones.(E)
9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path,(F)
1 Chronicles 22:12
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
12 Only, may the Lord grant you discretion and understanding, so that when he gives you charge over Israel you may keep the law of the Lord your God.(A)
Read full chapter
Ephesians 5:17
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
17 So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.(A)
Read full chapter
Isaiah 11:2-4
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
2 The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.(A)
3 His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see
or decide by what his ears hear,(B)
4 but with righteousness he shall judge for the poor
and decide with equity for the oppressed of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.(C)
2 Corinthians 3:5
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
5 Not that we are qualified of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our qualification is from God,(A)
Read full chapter
Proverbs 3:13-18
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
The True Wealth
13 Happy are those who find wisdom
and those who get understanding,
14 for her income is better than silver
and her revenue better than gold.(A)
15 She is more precious than jewels,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.(B)
16 Long life is in her right hand;
in her left hand are riches and honor.(C)
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
and all her paths are peace.(D)
18 She is a tree of life to those who lay hold of her;
those who hold her fast are called happy.(E)
Psalm 119:34
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
34 Give me understanding, that I may keep your law
and observe it with my whole heart.(A)
Psalm 72:1-2
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
Psalm 72
Prayer for Guidance and Support for the King
Of Solomon.
1 Give the king your justice, O God,
and your righteousness to a king’s son.(A)
2 May he judge your people with righteousness
and your poor with justice.(B)
2 Chronicles 1:10
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
10 Give me now wisdom and knowledge to go out and come in before this people, for who can rule this great people of yours?”(A)
Read full chapter
Ecclesiastes 9:15-18
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no one remembered that poor man.(A) 16 So I said, “Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.”(B)
17 The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded
than the shouting of a ruler among fools.(C)
18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war,
but one bungler destroys much good.(D)
Psalm 119:144
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
144 Your decrees are righteous forever;
give me understanding that I may live.(A)
James 3:17
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.(A)
Read full chapter
Jeremiah 1:6
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
6 Then I said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”(A)
Read full chapter
Ecclesiastes 7:11
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
11 Wisdom is as good as an inheritance,
an advantage to those who see the sun.(A)
Proverbs 20:12
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
12 The hearing ear and the seeing eye—
the Lord has made them both.(A)
Proverbs 14:8
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
8 It is the wisdom of the clever to understand where they go,
but the folly of fools misleads.(A)
Psalm 119:73
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
73 Your hands have made and fashioned me;
give me understanding that I may learn your commandments.(A)
1 Chronicles 29:19
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
19 Grant to my son Solomon that with single mind he may keep your commandments, your decrees, and your statutes, performing all of them, and that he may build the temple[a] for which I have made provision.”(A)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 29.19 Heb fortress
Exodus 4:10-13
New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition
10 But Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”(A) 11 Then the Lord said to him, “Who gives speech to mortals? Who makes them mute or deaf, seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?(B) 12 Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you are to speak.”(C) 13 But he said, “O my Lord, please send someone else.”
Read full chapterNew Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.