1* My son, keep my words,
and treasure my commands.
2Keep my commands and live,*
and my teaching as the apple of your eye;
3Bind them on your fingers,
write them on the tablet of your heart.a
4Say to Wisdom, “You are my sister!”*
Call Understanding, “Friend!”
5That they may keep you from a stranger,
from the foreign woman with her smooth words.b
Knowledge Insufficient. 1Now in regard to meat sacrificed to idols:* we realize that “all of us have knowledge”; knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up.a 2If anyone supposes he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3But if one loves God, one is known by him.b
4So about the eating of meat sacrificed to idols: we know that “there is no idol in the world,” and that “there is no God but one.”c 5Indeed, even though there are so-called gods in heaven and on earth (there are, to be sure, many “gods” and many “lords”), 6* yet for us there is
one God, the Father,
from whom all things are and for whom we exist,
and one Lord, Jesus Christ,
through whom all things are and through whom we exist.d
Love of Enemies.* 43b “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’c 44But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, 45that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. 46For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors* do the same? 47And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?* 48So be perfect,* just as your heavenly Father is perfect.d