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The Gifts of Wisdom

8Does not wisdom call,
   and does not understanding raise her voice?
² On the heights, beside the way,
   at the crossroads she takes her stand;
³ beside the gates in front of the town,
   at the entrance of the portals she cries out:
⁴ ‘To you, O people, I call,
   and my cry is to all that live.

Wisdom’s Part in Creation

²² The Lord created me at the beginning^* of his work,^*
   the first of his acts of long ago.
²³ Ages ago I was set up,
   at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
²⁴ When there were no depths I was brought forth,
   when there were no springs abounding with water.
²⁵ Before the mountains had been shaped,
   before the hills, I was brought forth—
²⁶ when he had not yet made earth and fields,^*
   or the world’s first bits of soil.
²⁷ When he established the heavens, I was there,
   when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
²⁸ when he made firm the skies above,
   when he established the fountains of the deep,
²⁹ when he assigned to the sea its limit,
   so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
³⁰   then I was beside him, like a master worker;^*
and I was daily his^* delight,
   rejoicing before him always,
³¹ rejoicing in his inhabited world
   and delighting in the human race.