We’re coming to the end of the Introduction to Proverbs. Chapter 10 begins a long section of the famous “one-liners” like…

A wise son makes a glad father, But a foolish son is the grief of his mother. (Proverbs 10.1, NKJV)

Chapter 9 echoes the CHOOSE theme from chapter 8 using two metaphorical women:

Wisdom has built her house, She has hewn out her seven pillars… (Proverbs 9.1, NKJV)

The woman Folly is loud; she is seductive and knows nothing. (Proverbs 9.13, NKJV)

Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message: Lady Wisdom and Madame Prostitute (see Proverbs 9.1, 13, MSG).

What’s fascinating is that the same language is used for each:

“Whoever is simple, let him turn in here!” As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him…” (Proverbs 9.4 and 16, NKJV)

But the messages are quite different:

• Wisdom: …Forsake foolishness and live. And go in the way of understanding.
• Folly: Stolen water is sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.

But Folly’s message isn’t true. The chapter ends with:

But he does not know that the dead are there, That her guests are in the depths of hell. (Proverbs 9.18, NKJV)

It’s a common theme in scripture:

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live… (Deuteronomy 30.19, NKJV, emphasis mine)

And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. (Joshua 24.15, NKJV, emphases mine)

You always have a choice. It always makes a difference. – Author David McCasland in his book about Joseph