Ecclesiastes 7:23

but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world that he might put to shame the things that are strong.

“For my people are foolish. They don’t know me. They are foolish children, and they have no understanding. They are skillful in doing evil, but they don’t know how to do good.”

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble;

He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.

Every man has become brutish and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is disappointed by his engraved image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

“Son of man, tell the prince of Tyre, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Because your heart is lifted up, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of God, in the middle of the seas;’ yet you are man, and not God, though you set your heart as the heart of God—

desiring to be teachers of the law, though they understand neither what they say, nor about what they strongly affirm.

But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt.

Your heart will meditate on the terror. Where is he who counted? Where is he who weighed? Where is he who counted the towers?

who frustrates the signs of the liars, and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward, and makes their knowledge foolish;

“ ‘How do you say, “We are wise, and Yahweh’s law is with us?” But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has made that a lie.

Yahweh says, “Don’t let the wise man glory in his wisdom. Don’t let the mighty man glory in his might. Don’t let the rich man glory in his riches.

Have any of the rulers believed in him, or of the Pharisees?

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the lawyer of this world? Hasn’t God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Their eyes were opened, and they both knew that they were naked. They sewed fig leaves together, and made coverings for themselves.

The man said, “I heard your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; so I hid myself.”

Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever—”

Pharaoh said, “Who is Yahweh, that I should listen to his voice to let Israel go? I don’t know Yahweh, and moreover I will not let Israel go.”

“You shall not misuse the name of Yahweh your God, for Yahweh will not hold him guiltless who misuses his name.

only that the generations of the children of Israel might know, to teach them war, at least those who knew nothing of it before:

Saul swore to her by Yahweh, saying, “As Yahweh lives, no punishment will happen to you for this thing.”

Your servant Joab has done this thing to change the face of the matter. My lord is wise, according to the wisdom of an angel of God, to know all things that are in the earth.”

Someone told David, saying, “Ahithophel is among the conspirators with Absalom.” David said, “Yahweh, please turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.”

The counsel of Ahithophel, which he gave in those days, was as if a man inquired at the inner sanctuary of God. All the counsel of Ahithophel both was like this with David and with Absalom.

Absalom and all the men of Israel said, “The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel.” For Yahweh had ordained to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that Yahweh might bring evil on Absalom.

When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey, arose, and went home, to his city, and set his house in order, and hanged himself; and he died, and was buried in the tomb of his father.

Then the king of Israel gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men, and said to them, “Should I go against Ramoth Gilead to battle, or should I refrain?” They said, “Go up; for the Lord will deliver it into the hand of the king.”

For through the anger of Yahweh, this happened in Jerusalem and Judah, until he had cast them out from his presence. Then Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Now therefore don’t let Hezekiah deceive you, nor persuade you in this way. Don’t believe him, for no god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people out of my hand, and out of the hand of my fathers. How much less will your God deliver you out of my hand?”

this Ezra went up from Babylon. He was a skilled scribe in the law of Moses, which Yahweh, the God of Israel, had given; and the king granted him all his request, according to Yahweh his God’s hand on him.

An empty-headed man becomes wise when a man is born as a wild donkey’s colt.

He removes the speech of those who are trusted, and takes away the understanding of the elders.

He takes away understanding from the chiefs of the people of the earth, and causes them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.

For you have hidden their heart from understanding, Therefore you will not exalt them.

But as for you all, come back. I will not find a wise man among you.

who have said, “With our tongue we will prevail. Our lips are our own. Who is lord over us?”

Counsel and sound knowledge are mine. I have understanding and power.

As clouds and wind without rain, so is he who boasts of gifts deceptively.

Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!

Turn to the law and to the covenant! If they don’t speak according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”

The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the cornerstone of her tribes.

Everyone who makes a carved image is vain. The things that they delight in will not profit. Their own witnesses don’t see, nor know, that they may be disappointed.

For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’

Have you forgotten Yahweh your Maker, who stretched out the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth? Do you live in fear continually all day because of the fury of the oppressor, when he prepares to destroy? Where is the fury of the oppressor?

Who has believed our message? To whom has Yahweh’s arm been revealed?

Because with lies you have grieved the heart of the righteous, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, and be saved alive.

Will you yet say before him who kills you, ‘I am God’? But you are man, and not God, in the hand of him who wounds you.

Speak and say, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Behold, I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great monster that lies in the middle of his rivers, that has said, ‘My river is my own, and I have made it for myself.’

All the presidents of the kingdom, the deputies and the local governors, the counselors and the governors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a strong decree, that whoever asks a petition of any god or man for thirty days, except of you, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.

He won’t regard the gods of his fathers, or the desire of women, or regard any god; for he will magnify himself above all.

But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!

A scribe came, and said to him, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”

Therefore see whether the light that is in you isn’t darkness.

But a certain one of them, Caiaphas, being high priest that year, said to them, “You know nothing at all,

But some of those who were of the synagogue called “The Libertines”, and of the Cyrenians, of the Alexandrians, and of those of Cilicia and Asia arose, disputing with Stephen.

Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also were conversing with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be advocating foreign deities,” because he preached Jesus and the resurrection.

to open their eyes, that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’

I am debtor both to Greeks and to foreigners, both to the wise and to the foolish.

There is no one who understands. There is no one who seeks after God.

But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed ask him who formed it, “Why did you make me like this?”

For I don’t desire you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, so that you won’t be wise in your own conceits, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in,

For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise. I will bring the discernment of the discerning to nothing.”

We speak wisdom, however, among those who are full grown, yet a wisdom not of this world nor of the rulers of this world who are coming to nothing.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He has taken the wise in their craftiness.”

yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world.

You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies.

in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that the light of the Good News of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not dawn on them.

But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.

he who opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.

This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, and demonic.

Yet in the same way, these also in their dreaming defile the flesh, despise authority, and slander celestial beings.

They worshiped the dragon, because he gave his authority to the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”

He deceives my own people who dwell on the earth because of the signs he was granted to do in front of the beast, saying to those who dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast who had the sword wound and lived.

The king spoke and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”