Proverbs 2:10-22

English Standard Version

¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart,
    and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹^(A)discretion will ^(B)watch over you,
    understanding will guard you,
¹²delivering you from the way of evil,
    from men of perverted speech,
¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness
    to ^(C)walk in the ways of darkness,
¹⁴who ^(D)rejoice in doing evil
    and ^(E)delight in the perverseness of evil,
¹⁵men whose ^(F)paths are crooked,
    ^(G)and who are ^(H)devious in their ways.

¹⁶So ^(I)you will be delivered from the forbidden^[a] woman,
    from ^(J)the adulteress^[b] with ^(K)her smooth words,
¹⁷who forsakes ^(L)the companion of her youth
    and forgets ^(M)the covenant of her God;
¹⁸^(N)for her house sinks down to death,
    and her paths to the departed;^[c]
¹⁹none who go to her come back,
    nor do they regain the paths of life.

²⁰So you will walk in the way of the good
    and keep to the paths of the righteous.
²¹For the upright ^(O)will inhabit the land,
    and those with integrity will remain in it,
²²but the wicked will be ^(P)cut off from the land,
    and the treacherous will be ^(Q)rooted out of it.