8:1 Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her
voice?
8:2 On the heights, beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her
stand;
8:3 beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the
portals she cries out:
8:4 "To you, O people, I call, and my cry is to all that live.
8:22 The LORD created me at the beginning of his work, the first of
his acts of long ago.
8:23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of
the earth.
8:24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were
no springs abounding with water.
8:25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was
brought forth--
8:26 when he had not yet made earth and fields, or the world's
first bits of soil.
8:27 When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a
circle on the face of the deep,
8:28 when he made firm the skies above, when he established the
fountains of the deep,
8:29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters
might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations
of the earth,
8:30 then I was beside him, like a master worker; and I was daily
his delight, rejoicing before him always,
