Exhortation to Uprightness

Love righteousness, you rulers of the earth; think of the Lord in goodness and seek him with sincerity of heart,

For wisdom is a kindly spirit, but it will not free blasphemers from the guilt of their words, because God is witness of their inmost feelings and a true observer of their hearts and a hearer of their tongues.

For we were born by mere chance, and hereafter we shall be as though we had never been, for the breath in our nostrils is smoke, and reason is a spark kindled by the beating of our hearts;

for his soul was pleasing to the Lord; therefore he hastened him from the midst of wickedness. Yet the peoples saw and did not understand or take such a thing to heart,

When I considered these things inwardly and pondered in my heart that in kinship with wisdom there is immortality,

But I perceived that I would not possess wisdom unless God gave her to me— and it was a mark of insight to know whose gift she was— so I appealed to the Lord and implored him, and with my whole heart I said,

Their heart is ashes, their hope is cheaper than dirt, and their lives are of less worth than clay,