2 My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,
² Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
³ For if you cry for discernment,
^[a]Lift your voice for understanding;
⁴ If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
⁵ Then you will discern the fear of the Lord
And discover 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 He preserves the way of His godly ones.
⁹ Then you will discern righteousness and justice
And equity and every good course.
¹⁰ For wisdom will enter your heart
And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹ Discretion will guard you,
Understanding will watch over you,
¹² To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things;
¹³ From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
¹⁴ Who delight in doing evil
And rejoice in the perversity of evil;
¹⁵ Whose paths are crooked,
And who are devious in their ways;
¹⁶ To deliver you from the strange woman,
From the ^[b]adulteress who flatters with her words;
¹⁷ That leaves the companion of her youth
And forgets the covenant of her God;
¹⁸ For her house ^[c]sinks down to death
And her tracks lead to the ^[d]dead;
¹⁹ None who go to her return again,
Nor do they reach 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 ^[e]live in the land
And the blameless will remain in it;
²² But the wicked will be cut off from the land
And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.