Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

¹² Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!

¹³ For He has made the bars of the gates strong and has blessed your children within you.

¹⁴ He sets peace on your borders and satisfies you with the flour of wheat.

¹⁵ He sends forth His Commandment upon Earth; and His Word runs very swiftly.

¹⁶ He gives snow like wool and scatters the hoary frost like ashes.

¹⁷ He casts forth His ice like morsels. Who can abide the cold thereof?

¹⁸ He sends His Word and melts them. He causes His wind to blow and the waters to flow.

¹⁹ He shows His Word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel.

²⁰ He has not dealt so with every nation; nor have they known His judgments. Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD

1 The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, King of Israel:

² to know wisdom and instruction; to understand the words of knowledge;

³ to receive instruction; to do wisely by justice and judgment and equity;

⁴ to give sharpness of wit to the simple, and knowledge and discretion to the child.

⁵ And a wise man shall hear and increase in learning. And a man of understanding shall attain to wise counsels;

⁶ to understand a parable and the interpretation, the words of the wise and their dark sayings.

⁷ The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge. But fools despise wisdom and instruction.

¹³ Who is wise among you and endowed with knowledge? Let him show the good behavior of his works in the gentleness of wisdom.

¹⁴ But if you have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, do not boast. And do not be liars against the truth.

¹⁵ This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic.

¹⁶ For where there is envying and strife, there is upheaval, and all kinds of evil works.

¹⁷ But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without judging, and without hypocrisy.

¹⁸ And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.