I just love reading multiple translations of the bible. It gives such insight, like looking at an intricately woven tapestry, where the care and attention of the artist is visible in the finished piece. In the same manner as a master weaver, a translator must take into account the full measure of the intent of the words he chooses – not just the individual words, but also the intent of the sentences, paragraphs, and the chapters.

In the New International Version Proverbs 1:8-9 reads: Listen, my son to your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching, they are a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck. These same two verses in the New Living Translation read: My child, listen when your father corrects you. Don’t neglect your mother’s instruction. What you learn from them will crown you with grace and be a chain of honor around your neck.

By reading the same verses through different translations, we can see how they extoll the rich reward we gather to ourselves when we honor our mother and father. Our parents didn’t start their lives on the day that we were born, and they have brought to our lives, not only all that they have learned through personal experience, but also all that their parents have imparted to them through discipline and instruction. It seems important to God that if we want to gain wisdom, we must be willing to listen, to be open to what others have to offer us through their experience, and to be able to learn from it.

So the first step to gaining wisdom is to admit that we don’t know it all, and the second step is to listen, and through listening gain knowledge and instruction.

~SLM