¹Now for silver there is a vein,

And there is a place where they refine gold.

²Iron is obtained from ore,

And mineral is cast into copper.

³The miner discounts darkness,

And in every direction he searches for minerals,

In thick darkness and the shadow of death.

⁴He sinks a shaft with a migrant workforce,

Who do not use their feet.

They are lowered down;

They move about unnaturally.

⁵As for the land, from it comes bread,

But underneath it,

It is like fire swirling around.

⁶Amongst its stones is a place of sapphire;

It includes gold-bearing ore.

⁷There is a path which the bird of prey does not know,

And the eye of the kite has not seen.

⁸The lion's whelps have not trodden it,

And the fierce lion has not passed along it.

⁹At the flint he applies his hand;

He overturns mountains at their roots.

¹⁰He cuts out galleries in the rocks,

And his eye sees every kind of precious gemstone.

¹¹He blocks underground rivers from gushing,

And he brings a hidden thing to light.

¹²But from where is wisdom obtained?

And where is the place of understanding?

¹³Man does not know its value,

Nor is it found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The ocean says,

‘It is not in me’,

And the sea says,

‘It is not with me.’

¹⁵Gold cannot be given in exchange for it,

And silver cannot be weighed out as its price.

¹⁶It cannot be piled in the scales against fine gold from Ophir

Or valuable onyx or sapphire.

¹⁷Gold and crystal cannot match its value,

Nor is its exchange value an object of purified gold.

¹⁸Precious gems and crystal are not worth a mention,

But the acquisition of wisdom is worth more than red corals.

¹⁹Ethiopian topaz cannot match its value,

Nor can it be piled in the scales against pure gold.

²⁰But as for wisdom – where does it come from?

And where is the place of understanding?

²¹Well, it is concealed from the eyes of every living being,

And it is hidden from the birds of the sky.

²²Destruction and death say,

‘We have heard of its reputation with our ears.’

²³God understands its way,

And he knows its place.

²⁴For he looks to the ends of the earth;

He sees what is under all the heavens.

²⁵It was to give weight to the wind

When he weighed water accurately,

²⁶And when he issued a statute to the rain,

And a way for lightning and thunderclaps.

²⁷Then he saw it

And declared it.

He established it

And searched it out.

²⁸And he said to man,

‘Behold, the fear of the Lord^* is wisdom,

And to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”