Wisdom Calls in the Street
8 My son, listen to your father’s instruction, and don’t forsake your mother’s teaching; 9 for they will be a garland to grace your head, and chains around your neck. 10 My son, if sinners entice you, don’t consent. 11 If they say, “Come with us. Let’s lie in wait for blood. Let’s lurk secretly for the innocent without cause. 12 Let’s swallow them up alive like Sheol, and whole, like those who go down into the pit. 13 We’ll find all valuable wealth. We’ll fill our houses with plunder. 14 You shall cast your lot among us. We’ll all have one purse”— 15 my son, don’t walk on the path with them. Keep your foot from their path, 16 for their feet run to evil. They hurry to shed blood. 17 For the net is spread in vain in the sight of any bird; 18 but these lay in wait for their own blood. They lurk secretly for their own lives. 19 So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its owners. 20 Wisdom calls aloud in the street. She utters her voice in the public squares. 21 She calls at the head of noisy places. At the entrance of the city gates, she utters her words: 22 “How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge? 23 Turn at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit on you. I will make known my words to you. 24 Because I have called, and you have refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no one has paid attention; 25 but you have ignored all my counsel, and wanted none of my reproof; 26 I also will laugh at your disaster. I will mock when calamity overtakes you, 27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when your disaster comes on like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come on you. 28 Then they will call on me, but I will not answer. They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me, 29 because they hated knowledge, and didn’t choose the fear of Yahweh. 30 They wanted none of my counsel. They despised all my reproof. 31 Therefore they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes. 32 For the backsliding of the simple will kill them. The careless ease of fools will destroy them. 33 But whoever listens to me will dwell securely, and will be at ease, without fear of harm.”
The first temptation offered to the son is not pleasure but belonging, and the first speech by Wisdom is delivered in the marketplace at the top of her voice.
The instruction opens with two teachers named together: your father's instruction and your mother's teaching. Both parents are credited throughout the book, and what they give is compared to jewelry — a garland for the head and chains for the neck. The comparison is not sentimental. A garland was worn where everyone could see it, so the claim is that a formed character is visible in the way ornament is.
The first danger is then set out, and it is worth noticing what it is not. The sinners who entice do not offer money first. They offer membership: Come with us... You shall cast your lot among us. We'll all have one purse. The invitation is to be included, and the crime is the price of admission. Anyone who has watched a young man go wrong will recognize the order of those clauses.
The answer given is not moral outrage but an observation about how traps work. The net is spread in vain in the sight of any bird — no bird walks into a trap it can see. And then the turn: these men are laying an ambush for somebody, and these lay in wait for their own blood. They are the bird. Greed is described as a mechanism that takes the life of the man operating it, and the passage credits the son with enough sense to see that if it is pointed out.
Then Wisdom speaks for the first time, and where she speaks is the point. Not in a school or a temple but in the street, the public squares, the head of the noisy places, the entrance of the city gates. She is at the market and the courthouse door, shouting. Whatever else this book thinks wisdom is, it is not esoteric and it is not hard to find.
What she says is severe, and the severity has a shape. She has called and been refused; she has stretched out her hand and nobody paid attention. So there will come a point when they will call on me, but I will not answer. That is not petulance. The reason is given in the next lines and it is causal rather than judicial: they will eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own schemes. A man who has spent thirty years training himself not to hear correction has a settled incapacity, and the disaster finds him already unable to respond. The chapter ends on the alternative, quietly: whoever listens to me will dwell securely, and will be at ease, without fear of harm.
settled What this mark means