THE WISDOM OF SALOMON 1 & 2


Salomon 1

2 How we ought to search and inquire after God. 2 Who be those that find him. 5 The Holy Ghost. 8-11 We ought to flee from backbiting and murmuring. 12 Whereof death comes. 15 Righteousness and unrighteousness.

LOVE righteousness, ye that be Judges of the earth: think reverently of the Lord, and seek him in simplicity of heart. For he will be found of them that tempt him not, and appears unto such as be not unfaithful unto him.

For wicked thoughts separate from God: and his power when it is tried, reproves the unwise,

Because wisdom can not enter into a wicked heart, nor dwell in the body that is subject unto sin.

For the Holy Spirit of disciple flees from deceit, and withdraws himself from the thoughts that are without understanding, and is rebuked when wickedness comes.

For the Spirit of wisdom is loving, and will not absolve him, that blasphemies with his lips: for God is a witness of his reins, and a true beholder of his heart, and an hearer of the tongue.

For the Spirit of the Lord fills all the world: and the same that maintains all things, hath knowledge of the voice.

Therefore he that speaks unrighteous things, can not be hid: neither shall the judgment of reproach let him escape.

For inquisition shall be made for the thoughts of the ungodly, and the sound of his words shall come unto God for the correction of his iniquities.

For the ears of jealousy hears all things, and the noise of the grudgings shall not be hid.

Therefore beware of murmuring, which profits nothing, and refrain your tongue from slander: for there is no word so secret, that shall go for nothing, and the mouth that speaks lies, slays the soul.

Seek not death in the error of your life: destroy not yourselves through the works of your own hands.

For God hath not made death, neither has he pleasure in the destruction of the living.

For he created all things, that they might have their being: and the generations of the world are preserved, and there is no poison of destruction in them, and the kingdom of hell brings death.

And the ungodly call it unto them both with hands and words: and while they think to have a friend of it, they come to nothing: for they are confederate with it: therefore are they worthy to be partakers thereof.

Salomon 2

The imaginations and desires of the wicked, and their counsel against the faithful.

FOR the ungodly say, as they falsely imagine with themselves, Our life is short and tedious: and in the death of a man there is no recovery, neither was any known that hath returned from the grave.

For we are born at all adventure, and we shall be hereafter as though we had never been: for the breath is a smoke in our nostrils, and the words as a spark raised out of our heart.

Which being extinguished, the body is turned into ashes, and the spirit vanishes as the soft air.

Our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud, and come to nothing as the mist that is driven away with the beams of the sun, and cast down with the heat thereof. Our name also shall be forgotten in time, and no man shall have our works in remembrance.

For our time is as a shadow that passes away, and after our end there is no returning: for it is fast sealed, so that no man comes again.

Come therefore, and let us enjoy the pleasures, that are present, and let us cheerfully use the creatures as in youth.

Let us fill ourselves with rose buds before they be withered.

Let us all be partakers of our wantonness: let us leave some token of our pleasure in every place: for that is our portion, and this is our lot.

Let us oppress the poor, that is righteous: let us not spare the widow, nor reverence the white hairs of the aged, that have lived many years.

Let our strength be the law of unrighteousness: for the thing that is feeble, is reproved as unprofitable.

Therefore let us defraud the righteous: for he is not for our profit, and he is contrary to our doings: he checks us for offending against the Law, and blame us as transgressors of discipline.

He makes his boast to have the knowledge of God: and he calls himself the son of the Lord.

He is made to reprove our thoughts.

It grieves us also to look upon him: for his life is not like other men: his ways are of another fashion.

He counts us as bastards, and he withdraws himself from our ways as from filthiness: he commends greatly the latter end of the just, and boasts that God is his father.

Let us see then if his words be true: let us prove what end he shall have.

For if the righteous man be the son of God, he will help him, and deliver him from the hands of his enemies.

Let us examine him unto a shameful death: for he shall be preserved as he himself saith.

Such things do they imagine, and go astray: for their own wickedness hath blinded them.

And they do not understand the mysteries of God, neither hope for the reward of righteousness, nor can discern the honor of the souls that are faultless.

For God created man without corruption, and made him after the image of his own likeness.

Nevertheless, through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that hold of his side, prove it.


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