'Wise' in the Bible
“For My people are stupid and foolish,” [says the Lord to Jeremiah];“They do not know Me;They are foolish childrenAnd have no understanding.They are shrewd [enough] to do evil,But they do not know [how] to do good.”
“How can you say, ‘We are wise,And the law of the Lord is with us [and we are learned in its language and teachings]’?Behold, [the truth is that] the lying pen of the scribesHas made the law into a lie [a mere code of ceremonial observances].
“The wise men are shamed,They are dismayed and caught.Behold, they have [manipulated and] rejected the [truth in the] word of the Lord,And what kind of wisdom and insight do they have?
Who is the wise man who may understand this [without any doubt]? To whom has the mouth of the Lord spoken, so that he may declare it? Why is the land ruined, laid waste like a wilderness, so that no one passes through?
Thus says the Lord, “Let not the one who is wise and skillful boast in his insight; let not the one who is mighty and powerful boast in his strength; let not the one who is rich boast in his [temporal satisfactions and earthly] abundance;
Who would not fear You, O King of the nations?For it is appropriate and it is Your due!For among all the wise men of the nationsAnd in all their kingdoms,There is none like You.
Then [my enemies] said, “Come and let us work out schemes against Jeremiah. Surely the law is not going to be lost to the priest [as Jeremiah predicts], nor the counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come and let us strike him with our tongue [by making charges against him before the king], and let us ignore anything he says.”
“A sword against the Chaldeans,” says the Lord,“And against the inhabitants of BabylonAnd against her princes (officials, civic rulers) and against her wise men (astrologers, religious rulers)!
“I will make her princes and her wise men drunk,Her governors and her commanders and her mighty warriors;They will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,”Says the King—the Lord of hosts is His name.