Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy. —PSALM 45:6–7

Praise the Lord from the earth . . . lightning and hail, snow and clouds, stormy winds that do his bidding, you his mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars. . . . Let them praise the name of the Lord. —PSALM 148:7–9,13

Do not eat the food of a stingy man, do not crave his delicacies; for he is the kind of man who is always thinking about the cost. “Eat and drink, ” he says to you, but his heart is not with you.

—PROVERBS 23:6–7

Starting a quarrel is like breaching a dam; so drop the matter before a dispute breaks out. He who loves a quarrel loves sin; he who builds a high gate invites destruction. —PROVERBS 17:14,19

Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in? For sighing comes to me instead of food; my groans pour out like water. What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.

—JOB 3:23–25

For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin.

— PSALM 36:2

Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble. The Lord will protect him and preserve his life. —PSALM 41:1–2

I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. . . .Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. —ECCLESIASTES 2:10,11

There are those who curse their fathers and do not bless their mothers; those who are pure in their own eyes and yet are not cleansed of their filth; those whose eyes are ever so haughty, whose glances are so disdainful; those whose teeth are swords and whose jaws are set with knives to devour the poor from the earth, the needy from among mankind. —PROVERBS 30:11–14

The sayings of King Lemuel—an oracle his mother taught him: “O my son, O son of my womb, O son of my vows, do not spend your strength on women, your vigor on those who ruin kings.” —PROVERBS 31:1–3