8. Today we are far from home, where you have scattered us as an insult, a curse, and a penalty due to all the unjust actions of our ancestors, who deserted the Lord our God.
9. Hear, Israel, the commandments of life.Listen carefully, and you’ll come to know Wisdom.
10. Why is it, Israel, that you are in the enemies’ land,growing old in a foreign land,
11. polluted by the dead,and counted as peoplealready in the grave?
12. You have abandoned the fountainfrom which wisdom flows.
13. If you had walked in the way of God,you would be living in peace forever.
14. Learn where there are wisdom, strength, and understandingso that you may know at the same timewhere there are longevity, life, understanding, and peace.
15. Who has found her place of residence,and who has enteredher storehouses?
16. Where are the leading officialsof the nationsand the masters of the animalsthat are on the earth?
17. Where are those who entrapthe birds in the sky,and those who store up silver and gold, in which humans have trusted?There is no end to their attemptsto acquire more.
18. Where are those who anxiously schemed to acquire silver?There is no trace of their actions.
19. They have all vanishedand gone to the grave,and others have risen up in their place.
20. New generations have seen the lightand lived on the earth,but they didn’t knowthe way of knowledge.
21. They didn’t understand her pathsor take hold of her.Their children also went far off course.
22. She hadn’t been heard of in Canaanor seen in Teman.