The Words of Agur
The man’s oration to Ithiel, to Ithiel and Ucal:30:1 Hb uncertain. Sometimes read with different word division as oration: I am weary, God, I am weary, God, and I am exhausted, or oration: I am not God, I am not God, that I should prevail. LXX reads My son, fear my words and when you have received them repent. The man says these things to the believers in God, and I pause.
2I am more stupid than any other person,30:2 Lit I am more stupid than a man
and I lack a human’s ability to understand.30:2 1Kg 3:7
3I have not gained wisdom,
and I have no knowledge of the Holy One.30:3 Pr 9:10
4Who has gone up to heaven and come down?30:4 Jn 3:13; Eph 4:9–10
Who has gathered the wind in his hands?
What is his name,
and what is the name of his son —
if you know?30:4 Mt 11:27; Rv 19:12–13
he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.30:5 Ps 3:3
or he will rebuke you, and you will be proved a liar.30:6 Dt 18:22
7Two things I ask of you;
don’t deny them to me before I die:
8Keep falsehood and deceitful words far from me.
Give me neither poverty nor wealth;
feed me with the food I need.30:8 Jb 23:12; Mt 6:11; Php 4:11–12
9Otherwise, I might have too much30:9 Dt 6:10–12; 8:11–14
profaning30:9 Lit grabbing the name of my God.30:9 Lv 19:11–12
10Don’t slander a servant to his master
or he will curse you,30:10 Ec 7:21 and you will become guilty.
11There is a generation that curses its father
yet is not washed from its filth.
13There is a generation — how haughty its eyes
and pretentious its looks.30:13 Lit and its eyelids lifted up
whose fangs are knives,30:14 Jb 29:17
devouring the oppressed from the land30:14 Ps 14:4
and the needy from among mankind.
15The leech has two daughters: “Give, Give!”
four never say, “Enough!”:
earth, which is never satisfied with water;
and fire, which never says, “Enough!”
and despises obedience to a mother,
may ravens of the valley pluck it out
and young vultures eat it.30:17 Dt 28:26
four I can’t understand:
19the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship at sea,
and the way of a man with a young woman.
20This is the way of an adulteress:
she eats and wipes her mouth
21The earth trembles under three things;
it cannot bear up under four:
a fool when he is stuffed with food,
23an unloved woman when she marries,30:23 Gn 29:30–31; Dt 21:15
and a servant girl when she ousts her queen.
24Four things on earth are small,
yet they are extremely wise:
25ants are not a strong people,
yet they store up their food in the summer;30:25 Pr 6:6–8
26hyraxes are not a mighty people,
27locusts have no king,
yet all of them march in ranks;30:27 Jl 2:7–8
28a lizard30:28 Or spider can be caught in your hands,
yet it lives in kings’ palaces.
29Three things are stately in their stride;
four are stately in their walk:
30a lion, which is mightiest among beasts
and doesn’t retreat before anything;
31a strutting rooster;30:31 Or a greyhound a goat;
and a king at the head of his army.30:31 LXX reads king addressing his people
32If you have been foolish by exalting yourself
or if you’ve been scheming,
33For the churning of milk produces butter,
and twisting a nose draws blood,
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