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| DOTH 1 not WISDOM cry, | |
| and Understanding put forth her voice?.. | |
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| The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his Way, | |
| before his works of old. | |
| I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, | 5 |
| or ever the earth was. | |
| When no depths were, I was brought forth: | |
| when there were no fountains abounding with water. | |
| Before the mountains were settled, | |
| before the hills was I brought forth: | 10 |
| While as yet he had not made the earth nor the fields, | |
| nor the first dust of the world. | |
| When he prepared the heavens, I was there: | |
| when he set a compass upon the face of the deep: | |
| In his empowering of the clouds above: | 15 |
| in the strong gathering of the fountains of the deep: | |
| When he gave to the sea its boundary | |
| that the waters should not pass his commandment: | |
| when he determined the foundations of the earth: | |
| Then was I by him as a master-workman: | 20 |
| and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; | |
| Rejoicing in his habitable earth: | |
| and my delight was with the sons of men
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| Blessed is the man that heareth me, | |
| watching daily at my gates, | 25 |
| waiting at the posts of my doors; | |
| For whoso findeth me findeth life
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| but he that misseth me wrongeth his own soul. | |
| All they that hate me love death. | |