Proverbs chapter 1

vs 12

It's at this point that you realise that most criminals are actually out of work poets or lyricists. I mean, who says, "Swallow them like the grave"? So remember - Proverbs teaches to stay away from the poetic.

vs 13

Really? Apparently they're also liars. How full can you possibly make your house with plunder just by robbing people? They must carry a fair bit of wealth around.

vs 14

Especially if you're casting lots for loot, who's to say you won't just keep getting the poor peopel's underpants?

vs 15

Why would Solomon's son ever need to go and rob people? He's probably got more money than them anyway! In any case, rule number one of proverbial wisdom is apparently "Do not become a highway bandit."

vs 16

Yeah, okay. The real rule number one is "Don't follow idiots." Regardless of whether they're robbing people or investing in dodgy shares, the fact is that not only do they do stupid things, but they do evil things without even really thinking about it. I actually like the idea of calling immoral people fools. If you call them evil then you hate them. If you call them fools, you pity them.

vs 17

I didn't know nets worked on the principle of invisibility... I suppose if the bird flies around a corner and is confronted by the net, it gets stuck, rather than being in between two big trees in an empty space, where the bird just flies over it.

vs 18

Not that they won't necessarily kill people and take their money. But the fact is that they are harming themselves in doing so.

vs 19

Whether it ends up being a soldier who takes away their life, or just an ambushee who turns out to be better at fighting than them. Or I suppose even if you just become reliant on it as a source of income, then you've become trapped by it, and you won't be good at anything else.

vs 20

Of course wisdom is a woman. In Hebrew the word is treated as feminine I believe. But it's also interesting that wisdom and love are so often tangled together in Proverbs. The all encompassing nature of wisdom really is fascinating.

vs 21

So that everyone hears her, of course.

vs 22

A challenge to all who despise wisdom - whether it be the simple (without moral direction), the mockers (I wonder if cynic would be an adequate synonym?) and the fools (the morally deficient). Note of course that it's not purely about morality, but the element of morality included in, say, a fool who despises knowledge, cannot be separated.