Bookmarks
Recently viewed
No pages viewed yet.
Bookmarked
No bookmarked pages yet.
Primarily attributed to Solomon, with contributions from Agur and King Lemuel. Proverbs is a collection of wisdom sayings that teach practical godliness — how to live skillfully, justly, and in the fear of the Lord across every area of daily life.
The extended opening of Proverbs uses ten instruction speeches and three wisdom poems to frame the entire book's invitation. Lady Wisdom cries out in the streets, discloses her presence at creation, and sets her table. Lady Folly imitates the call but leads to death. The fundamental choice is between two ways of inhabiting the world.
The main body of Proverbs: hundreds of two-line sayings about the patterns of human life — speech, character, work, wealth, family, friendship, and justice. The sayings describe how the world tends to work under God's moral governance, naming the patterns that wisdom perceives and the habits that virtue builds.
The final section of Proverbs gathers a collection copied under King Hezekiah, the confessions of two named sages, and the closing portrait of the woman of valor — an acrostic poem that embodies wisdom in a fully realized human life. The book ends not with a principle but with a person.