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Listen, Israel, to the commands that promise life; pay attention, and you will become wise.
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Why is it, Israel, that you find yourself in an enemy land? Why have you grown old in a foreign country? You are ritually unclean, like the dead;
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you are already counted among the dead. But why?
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It is because you have left the source of Wisdom!
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If you had walked in God's ways, you would have lived in peace forever.
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Learn where understanding, strength, and insight are to be found. Then you will know where to find a long and full life, light to guide you, and peace.
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No one has ever found where Wisdom lives or has entered her treasure house,
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and those who have tried have vanished: the rulers of the nations, those who hunted wild animals and birds for sport, those who accumulated vast fortunes of silver and gold, which everyone trusts and will do anything to get,
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and those who worried and schemed to make money, but who left no trace of their work behind.
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They have all disappeared and gone down to the world of the dead. Others have come along to take their place.