Proverbs 31

King Lemuel records the counsel of his mother, warning a king against women and wine that destroy judgment and urging him to “open your mouth for the mute... and defend the rights of the poor and needy.” The book then closes with a masterful acrostic poem praising the excellent wife — industrious, wise, generous, and strong — whose crowning virtue is stated as the theme of the whole book: “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”