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Proverbs 9:13 · World English Bible

Proverbs 9:13 Meaning The Foolish Woman Is Loud

The foolish woman is loud, undisciplined, and knows nothing.

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What does Proverbs 9:13 mean?

The voice that must be loud is the voice with nothing behind it. Folly is drawn here as a clamoring woman because the ego, having no truth to rest upon, can only insist, and its loudness is the measure of its emptiness rather than its strength.

From the Christian Psychology reading below.

Proverbs 9:13 through 1 lens

The same verse, read by one tradition.

CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY

Christian Psychology

The voice that must be loud is the voice with nothing behind it. Folly is drawn here as a clamoring woman because the ego, having no truth to rest upon, can only insist, and its loudness is the measure of its emptiness rather than its strength.

It knows nothing because knowing belongs to the mind that is joined with love, while the ego can only guess and grasp and fear. Wherever the mind hears an urgent, demanding voice that promises much and proves nothing, it is listening to the part of itself that mistook separation for a self.

Foolish woman: the ego's voice in the mind, loud because it has nothing true beneath it, promising much and able to know nothing

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Christian Psychology lens

Live Proverbs 9:13 today

  1. When the urgent thought shows up today, the one insisting you must act right now, wait ten minutes before doing anything. Most of them lose their voice.
  2. In a conversation where you want to argue harder, lower your volume instead of raising it. The quieter sentence usually carries more.
  3. Turn off one source of noise today, a notification, a tab, an app you open out of habit. See what you can hear underneath it.

Which voice in me is loudest, and what is actually behind it?

The same truth in other traditions

Tao Te Ching 23

Nature does not make a fuss. A hard rain does not last all morning. What is real does not need to shout to stay.

Buddhism · Dhammapada 8

Better than a thousand hollow words is one word that brings peace. Volume is no measure of truth.

Stoicism · Epictetus

Epictetus said sheep do not bring the shepherd grass to prove they have eaten. What is real shows itself without announcement.

Mid-century illustration of Jesus teaching the crowd on a hillside above the sea

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