1 Corinthians 3:19-20

“For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He that taketh the wise in their craftiness.' 20. And again, ‘The Lord knoweth the reasonings of the wise, that they are vain.'”

The first passage declares the power-lessness of the wisdom of the world to reach the ends at which it aims, consequently its vanity from the standpoint of utility. It is taken from Job 5:13. The devices of the wise themselves become the net in which God takes them, so that they are forced in the end to confess that the more subtle, the more foolish they have been. The verb δράσσειν, to close the fist upon (from δράξ, the fist), is much more expressive than the word καταλαμβάνειν used by the LXX. to render the Hebrew term. The apostle likewise improves the translation of the LXX. by substituting for φρόνησις, prudence, the word πανουργία, from πᾶν and ἔργον, the capacity for doing everything, not in good, but in evil, to attain the end in view.