Proverbs 10:8
The wise in heart accept commands,
but a chattering fool comes to ruin.
This is a recurring theme in Proverbs and the basis upon which the proverbs are offered. Solomon wrote in chapter 1:5ff, “Let the wise hear and increase in learning, and the one who understands obtain guidance, to understand a proverb and a saying, the words of the wise and their riddles…fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
Are you looking for someone with wisdom from whom you can learn and whom you can trust? Then find someone who easily receives instruction himself, indeed, someone who is eager to keep learning. Find someone who takes seriously learning and obeying God’s commandments. It is the fool who delights in his own words, who desires not so much to pass on knowledge but to appear knowledgeable. The fool listens to no one; the wise are always receptive to what is true, good, and useful. The best teacher is the best student; the wisest counselor is the humblest of learners; the strongest leader is the most willing to receive good direction.
Leviticus 24
24 The Lord said to Moses, 2 ‘Command the Israelites to bring you clear oil of pressed olives for the light so that the lamps may be kept burning continually. 3 Outside the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law in the tent of meeting, Aaron is to tend the lamps before the Lord from evening till morning, continually. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. 4 The lamps on the pure gold lampstand before the Lord must be tended continually.
5 ‘Take the finest flour and bake twelve loaves of bread, using one fifth of an ephah for each loaf. 6 Arrange them in two piles, six in each pile, on the table of pure gold before the Lord. 7 By each pile put some pure incense as a memorial portion to represent the bread and to be a food offering presented to the Lord. 8 This bread is to be set out before the Lord regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant. 9 It belongs to Aaron and his sons, who are to eat it in the sanctuary area, because it is a most holy part of their perpetual share of the food offerings presented to the Lord.’
A blasphemer put to death
10 Now the son of an Israelite mother and an Egyptian father went out among the Israelites, and a fight broke out in the camp between him and an Israelite. 11 The son of the Israelite woman used the Name blasphemously with a curse; so they brought him to Moses. (His mother’s name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri the Danite.) 12 They put him in custody until the will of the Lord should be made clear to them.
13 Then the Lord said to Moses: 14 ‘Take the blasphemer outside the camp. All those who heard him are to lay their hands on his head, and the entire assembly is to stone him. 15 Say to the Israelites: “Anyone who curses their God will be held responsible; 16 anyone who uses the name of the Lord blasphemously is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they use the Name blasphemously they are to be put to death.
17 ‘“Anyone who takes the life of a human being is to be put to death. 18 Anyone who takes the life of someone’s animal must make restitution – life for life. 19 Anyone who injures their neighbour is to be injured in the same manner: 20 fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. The one who has inflicted the injury must suffer the same injury. 21 Whoever kills an animal must make restitution, but whoever kills a human being is to be put to death. 22 You are to have the same law for the foreigner and the native-born. I am the Lord your God.”’
23 Then Moses spoke to the Israelites, and they took the blasphemer outside the camp and stoned him. The Israelites did as the Lord commanded Moses.