Psalms 50:17

To man he said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. To depart from evil is understanding.’ ”

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. The knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

The fear of Yahweh teaches wisdom. Before honor is humility.

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom. All those who do his work have a good understanding. His praise endures forever!

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your descendants,

A fool has no delight in understanding, but only in revealing his own opinion.

“Keep your feet from being bare, and your throat from thirst. But you said, ‘It is in vain. No, for I have loved strangers, and I will go after them.’

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

Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness,

Beware, brothers, lest perhaps there might be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God;

“Nevertheless they were disobedient, and rebelled against you, cast your law behind their back, killed your prophets that testified against them to turn them again to you, and they committed awful blasphemies.

Ah sinful nation, a people loaded with iniquity, offspring of evildoers, children who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They are estranged and backward.

“I have struck your children in vain. They received no correction. Your own sword has devoured your prophets, like a destroying lion.

Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who shall hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.”

and it happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he bless himself in his heart, saying, “I shall have peace, though I walk in the stubbornness of my heart,” to destroy the moist with the dry.

So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold; and he said to them, “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Look and behold your gods, Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel!

He himself appointed priests for the high places, for the male goats, and for the calves which he had made.

Yes, when they had made themselves a molded calf, and said, ‘This is your God who brought you up out of Egypt,’ and had committed awful blasphemies;

His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him? If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?

Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.

Whoever loves correction loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.

There is stern discipline for one who forsakes the way: whoever hates reproof shall die.

The terror of a king is like the roaring of a lion. He who provokes him to anger forfeits his own life.

“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.”

Hear, earth! Behold, I will bring evil on this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not listened to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it.

So she uncovered her prostitution and uncovered her nakedness. Then my soul was alienated from her, just like my soul was alienated from her sister.

“Therefore the Lord Yahweh says: ‘Because you have forgotten me, and cast me behind your back, therefore you also bear your lewdness and your prostitution.’ ”

Though they bring up their children, yet I will bereave them, so that not a man shall be left. Indeed, woe also to them when I depart from them!

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness hasn’t overcome it.

“You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and these are they which testify about me.

Because knowing God, they didn’t glorify him as God, and didn’t give thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened.

For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.

In the greatness of your excellency, you overthrow those who rise up against you. You send out your wrath. It consumes them as stubble.

“You shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds those who have sight and perverts the words of the righteous.

Ahab the son of Omri did that which was evil in Yahweh’s sight above all that were before him.

for when Jezebel cut off Yahweh’s prophets, Obadiah took one hundred prophets, and hid them by fifty in a cave, and fed them with bread and water.)

He said, “I have been very jealous for Yahweh, the God of Armies; for the children of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

The king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of Yahweh, Micaiah the son of Imlah; but I hate him, for he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil.” Jehoshaphat said, “Don’t let the king say so.”

and testified against them, that you might bring them again to your law. Yet they were arrogant, and didn’t listen to your commandments, but sinned against your ordinances (which if a man does, he shall live in them), turned their backs, stiffened their neck, and would not hear.

In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light.

They don’t know, neither do they understand. They walk back and forth in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with his mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.

The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge; but the foolish despise wisdom and instruction.

“How long, you simple ones, will you love simplicity? How long will mockers delight themselves in mockery, and fools hate knowledge?

but you have ignored all my counsel, and wanted none of my reproof;

A fool despises his father’s correction, but he who heeds reproof shows prudence.

He who is often rebuked and stiffens his neck will be destroyed suddenly, with no remedy.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their hearts, yet so that man can’t find out the work that God has done from the beginning even to the end.

to deprive the needy from justice, and to rob the poor among my people of their rights, that widows may be their plunder, and that they may make the fatherless their prey!

Therefore the Holy One of Israel says, “Because you despise this word, and trust in oppression and perverseness, and rely on it,

Listen to me, you stubborn-hearted, who are far from righteousness!

You were wearied with the length of your ways; yet you didn’t say, ‘It is in vain.’ You found a reviving of your strength; therefore you weren’t faint.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush. Therefore they will fall among those who fall. When I visit them, they will be cast down,” says Yahweh.

Yahweh says, “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, ‘Where is the good way?’ and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

But they didn’t listen or turn their ear, but walked in their own counsels and in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

Your habitation is in the middle of deceit. Through deceit, they refuse to know me,” says Yahweh.

They have turned back to the iniquities of their forefathers, who refused to hear my words. They have gone after other gods to serve them. The house of Israel and the house of Judah have broken my covenant which I made with their fathers.

You have done evil more than your fathers, for behold, you each walk after the stubbornness of his evil heart, so that you don’t listen to me.

“Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, ‘Behold, I will bring on this city and on all its towns all the evil that I have pronounced against it, because they have made their neck stiff, that they may not hear my words.’ ”

Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains, they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array.

“For, behold, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up,” says Yahweh of Armies, “that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets, and stones those who are sent to her! How often I would have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves;

and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

Because of this, God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie;

They profess that they know God, but by their deeds they deny him, being abominable, disobedient, and unfit for any good work.

You have condemned and you have murdered the righteous one. He doesn’t resist you.

but have done evil above all who were before you, and have gone and made for yourself other gods, molten images, to provoke me to anger, and have cast me behind your back;

But he who sins against me wrongs his own soul. All those who hate me love death.”

He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the righteous, both of them alike are an abomination to Yahweh.

Be instructed, Jerusalem, lest my soul be alienated from you, lest I make you a desolation, an uninhabited land.”

The wise men are disappointed. They are dismayed and trapped. Behold, they have rejected Yahweh’s word. What kind of wisdom is in them?

But they say, ‘It is in vain; for we will walk after our own plans, and we will each follow the stubbornness of his evil heart.’ ”

Her leaders judge for bribes, and her priests teach for a price, and her prophets of it tell fortunes for money: yet they lean on Yahweh, and say, “Isn’t Yahweh among us? No disaster will come on us.”

Their hands are on that which is evil to do it diligently. The ruler and judge ask for a bribe; and the powerful man dictates the evil desire of his soul. Thus they conspire together.

For everyone who does evil hates the light, and doesn’t come to the light, lest his works would be exposed.

Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting;

and if you shall reject my statutes, and if your soul abhors my ordinances, so that you will not do all my commandments, but break my covenant,

The land also will be left by them, and will enjoy its Sabbaths while it lies desolate without them; and they will accept the punishment of their iniquity because they rejected my ordinances, and their soul abhorred my statutes.

They draw near who follow after wickedness. They are far from your law.

and say, “How I have hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

He who refuses correction despises his own soul, but he who listens to reproof gets understanding.

who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent!

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust, because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of Armies, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Whom will he teach knowledge? To whom will he explain the message? Those who are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts?

But they didn’t listen. They didn’t turn their ear, but made their neck stiff, that they might not hear, and might not receive instruction.

When Jehudi had read three or four leaves, the king cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was in the brazier, until all the scroll was consumed in the fire that was in the brazier.

I wrote for him the many things of my law; but they were regarded as a strange thing.

She didn’t obey the voice. She didn’t receive correction. She didn’t trust in Yahweh. She didn’t draw near to her God.

Yes, they made their hearts as hard as flint, lest they might hear the law, and the words which Yahweh of Armies had sent by his Spirit by the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from Yahweh of Armies.

You shall tell them, ‘This is the nation that has not listened to Yahweh their God’s voice, nor received instruction. Truth has perished, and is cut off from their mouth.’