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)

¹⁷ Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.^[a](A)

²³ All this I have tested by wisdom; I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me.^{(A) 24} That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?^(B)

The True Wisdom of God

⁶ Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are being destroyed.^{(A) 7} But we speak God’s wisdom, a hidden mystery, which God decreed before the ages for our glory ⁸ and which none of the rulers of this age understood, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,

¹⁰ God has revealed to us through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.^{(C) 11} For what human knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.^{(D) 12} Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. ¹³ And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual.^[a](E)

¹⁴ Those who are unspiritual^[b] do not receive the gifts of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to them, and they are unable to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.^{(F) 15} Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny.