Chapter 2

1 My son, if 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 cry out for insight

and raise your voice for understanding,

4 if you seek it like silver

and search for it as for hidden treasures;

5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord

and find the knowledge of God.

6 For the Lord gives wisdom;

from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;

he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

8 guarding the paths of justice

and preserving the way of his saints.

9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice

and equity, every good path;

10 for wisdom will come into your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

11 discretion will watch 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 walk in the ways of darkness,

14 who rejoice in doing evil

and delight in the perverseness of evil;

15 men whose paths are crooked,

and who are devious in their ways.

16 You will be saved from the loose woman,

from the adventuress with her smooth words,

17 who forsakes the companion of her youth

and forgets the covenant of her God;

18 for her house sinks down to death,

and her paths to the shades;

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 good men

and keep to the paths of the righteous.

21 For the upright will inhabit the land,

and men of integrity will remain in it;

22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land,

and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.