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²³Men shall clap their hands at him,

And shall hiss him out of his place.

 

28 For there is a mine for silver,

And a place for gold which they refine.

²Iron is taken out of the dust,

And brass is molten out of the stone.

³Man setteth an end to darkness,

And searcheth out to the furthest bound

The stones of thick darkness and of the shadow of death.

⁴He breaketh open a shaft away from where men sojourn;

They are forgotten of the foot that passeth by;

They hang afar from men, they swing to and fro.

⁵As for the earth, out of it cometh bread,

And underneath it is turned up as it were by fire.

⁶The stones thereof are the place of sapphires,

And it hath dust of gold.

⁷That path no bird of prey knoweth,

Neither hath the falcon's eye seen it;

⁸The proud beasts have not trodden it,

Nor hath the lion passed thereby.

⁹He putteth forth his hand upon the flinty rock;

He overturneth the mountains by the roots.

¹⁰He cutteth out channels among the rocks;

And his eye seeth every precious thing.

¹¹He bindeth the streams that they trickle not;

And the thing that is hid bringeth he forth to light.

 

¹²But wisdom, where shall it be found?

And where is the place of understanding?

¹³Man knoweth not the price thereof;

Neither is it found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The deep saith: 'It is not in me';

And the sea saith: 'It is not with me.'

¹⁵It cannot be gotten for gold,

Neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

¹⁶It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir,

With the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

¹⁷Gold and glass cannot equal it;

Neither shall the exchange thereof be vessels of fine gold.

¹⁸No mention shall be made of coral or of crystal;

Yea, the price of wisdom is above rubies.

¹⁹The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it,

Neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

 

²⁰Whence then cometh wisdom?

And where is the place of understanding?

²¹Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living,

And kept close from the fowls of the air.

²²Destruction and Death say:

'We have heard a rumor thereof with our ears.'

²³God understandeth the way thereof,

And He knoweth the place thereof.

²⁴For He looketh to the ends of the earth,

And seeth under the whole heaven;

²⁵When He maketh a weight for the wind,

And meteth out the waters by measure.

²⁶When He made a decree for the rain,

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