Nobody wants to look like a fool. Solomon was as opposite from a fool as you can get and so knew one when he saw one, and he doesn't have anything good to say about foolishness. In Proverbs 26 he goes on and on about how bad it is to be a fool or to have to live with one.
He says a fool isn't fit for honor. You have to control him by physical force, like an animal. Don't imitate him. Don't let him get away with his foolishness. Don't depend on him. He's not worth listening to. He'll destroy what he's hired to do and make you look like a bad boss. He never learns from his mistakes.
He says all this and more in his colorful Solomon-way, and then after all that proving how hopeless a fool is, after getting you to where you're convinced you're not one of THOSE kind of people, and you're glad you're not 'cause that would be the worst, he stops. And punches you in the stomach:
"Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him."
Gulp.
Take a fool and be a fool before taking or being a man who thinks he's wiser than he is.
And you think about it and you realize that sin, and the fall, did not happen due to foolishness. It was pride. And Jesus was not killed by fools, but by prideful, jealous men.
Pride is more dangerous than foolishness.
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