Proverbs 2:1–22
2 uMy son, vif you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
3 yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice wfor understanding,
4 if you seek it like xsilver
and search for it as for yhidden treasures,
5 then zyou will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6 For athe Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is ba shield to those who cwalk in integrity,
8 guarding the paths of justice
and dwatching over the way of his esaints.
9 fThen you will understand grighteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
10 for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
11 hdiscretion will iwatch over you,
understanding will guard you,
12 delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
13 who forsake the paths of uprightness
to jwalk in the ways of darkness,
14 who krejoice in doing evil
and ldelight in the perverseness of evil,
15 men whose mpaths are crooked,
nand who are odevious in their ways.
16 So pyou will be delivered from the forbidden1 woman,
from qthe adulteress2 with rher smooth words,
17 who forsakes sthe companion of her youth
and forgets tthe covenant of her God;
18 ufor her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the departed;3
19 none who go to her come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.
20 So you will walk in the way of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21 For the upright vwill inhabit the land,
and those with integrity will remain in it,
22 but the wicked will be wcut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be xrooted out of it.