Say to Wisdom, “You are my sister!” Call Understanding, “Friend!”
Would that you were a brother to me, nursed at my mother’s breasts! If I met you out of doors, I would kiss you and none would despise me.
If I am to say to the pit, “You are my father,” and to the worm “my mother,” “my sister,”
Bind them on your fingers, write them on the tablet of your heart.
That they may keep you from a stranger, from the foreign woman with her smooth words.