Judaism
Proverbs 2
Text
My son, if thou wilt receive my words, And lay up my commandments with thee;
So that thou make thine ear attend unto wisdom, And thy heart incline to discernment;
Yea, if thou call for understanding, And lift up thy voice for discernment;
If thou seek her as silver, And search for her as for hid treasures;
Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, And find the knowledge of God.
For the LORD giveth wisdom, Out of His mouth cometh knowledge and discernment;
He layeth up sound wisdom for the upright, He is a shield to them that walk in integrity;
That He may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of His godly ones. .
Then shalt thou understand righteousness and justice, And equity, yea, every good path.
For wisdom shall enter into thy heart, And knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul;
Discretion shall watch over thee, Discernment shall guard thee;
To deliver thee from the way of evil, From the men that speak froward things;
Who leave the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the frowardness of evil;
Who are crooked in their ways, And perverse in their paths;
To deliver thee from the strange woman, Even from the alien woman that maketh smooth her words;
That forsaketh the lord of her youth, And forgetteth the covenant of her God.
For her house sinketh down unto death, And her paths unto the shades;
None that go unto her return, Neither do they attain unto the paths of life;
That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.
For the upright shall dwell in the land, And the whole-hearted shall remain in it.
But the wicked shall be cut off from the land, And the faithless shall be plucked up out of it.
Text: The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society (1917), public domain, via Sefaria.
✦ Connected Across Traditions
Impermanence & Letting Go
Dhammapada 20:277 (trans. F. Max Müller)
“‘All created things perish,’ he who knows and sees this becomes passive in pain; this is the way to purity.”
Tao Te Ching 76 (trans. James Legge)
“Man at his birth is supple and weak; at his death, firm and strong. (So it is with) all things. Trees and plants, in their early growth, are soft and brittle; at their death, dry and withered.”
Ecclesiastes 3:1
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 2 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“Nay, but as when one layeth His worn-out robes away, And taking new ones, sayeth, "These will I wear to-day!" So putteth by the spirit Lightly its garb of flesh, And passeth to inherit A residence afresh.”
The Path to Wisdom
Dhammapada 20:282 (trans. Bhikkhu Sujato)
“From meditation springs wisdom, without meditation, wisdom ends.”
Analects 2:11 (trans. James Legge)
“If a man keeps cherishing his old knowledge, so as continually to be acquiring new, he may be a teacher of others.”
Tao Te Ching 33 (trans. James Legge)
“He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.”
Quran 39:9
“Are those who know equal with those who know not?”
Good vs Evil / Light vs Darkness
Yasna 30:3
“Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action.”
John 1:5
“And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”
Dhammapada 2 (trans. Bhikkhu Sujato)
“Intention is the leader of things; intention is first, they’re made by intention. If with pure intent you speak or act, happiness follows you like a shadow that never leaves.”
Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 16 (trans. Edwin Arnold)
“The Doors of Hell Are threefold, whereby men to ruin pass, The door of Lust, the door of Wrath, the door Of Avarice. Let a man shun those three!”