₁Listen! Wisdom is calling out.

Reason is making herself heard.

₂On the hilltops near the road

and at the crossroads she stands.

₃At the entrance to the city,

beside the gates, she calls:

₄“I appeal to all of you;

I call to everyone on earth.

₂₂“The LORD created me first of all,

the first of his works, long ago.

₂₃I was made in the very beginning,

at the first, before the world began.

₂₄I was born before the oceans,

when there were no springs of water.

₂₅I was born before the mountains,

before the hills were set in place,

₂₆before God made the earth and its fields

or even the first handful of soil.

₂₇I was there when he set the sky in place,

when he stretched the horizon across the ocean,

₂₈when he placed the clouds in the sky,

when he opened the springs of the ocean

₂₉and ordered the waters of the sea

to rise no further than he said.

I was there when he laid the earth's foundations.

₃₀I was beside him like an architect,

I was his daily source of joy,

always happy in his presence —

₃₁happy with the world

and pleased with the human race.

₁O LORD, our Lord,

your greatness is seen in all the world!

Your praise reaches up to the heavens;

₂it is sung by children and babies.

You are safe and secure from all your enemies;

you stop anyone who opposes you.

₃When I look at the sky, which you have made,

at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places —

₄what are human beings, that you think of them;

mere mortals, that you care for them?

₅Yet you made them inferior only to yourself;

you crowned them with glory and honour.

₆You appointed them rulers over everything you made;

you placed them over all creation:

₇sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too;

₈the birds and the fish

and the creatures in the seas.

₉O LORD, our Lord,

your greatness is seen in all the world!