Proverbs 8:16-29

¹⁶Rulers govern their people with the help of me, wisdom, and those who have authority decide things fairly/just with my help.

¹⁷I, wisdom, love all those who love me, and all those who truly seek me will find me.

¹⁸I enable people to become rich and to be honored; I enable them to have wealth that will last and to be successful.

¹⁹What I can give people is more valuable than fine/pure gold and the best silver.

²⁰I always do what is righteous and just/fair.

²¹I give wealth to those who love me; I fill their houses with valuable things.

²²Yahweh created me, wisdom, when he began to create the world; he created me to do my work before he created anything else.

²³He appointed me long ago, before he created the earth.

²⁴I was born before the oceans were created, when there were no springs from which water flowed.

²⁵I was born before the hills and mountains were formed;

²⁶I, wisdom, was born before Yahweh made the earth, before he made the fields and the soil on the earth.

²⁷I was there when Yahweh put the sky in place, when he marked the place in the distance where the sky and the oceans seem to come together.

²⁸I was there when Yahweh put the clouds above the earth and when he caused the water that is inside the earth to be secure.

²⁹I was there when he fixed a boundary for the seas, so that the water in the seas would not go past those boundaries, and when he put down the foundations which support the earth.