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10 Wisdom will enter your mind,
    and knowledge will fill you with delight.
11 Discretion will guard you;
    understanding will protect you.
12 Wisdom will rescue you from the evil path,
    from people who twist their words.
13 They forsake the way of integrity
    and go on obscure paths.
14 They enjoy doing evil,
    rejoicing in their twisted evil.
15 Their paths are confused;
    they get lost on their way.
16 Wisdom will rescue you from the mysterious woman,
    from the foreign woman with her slick words.
17 She leaves behind the partner of her youth;
    she even forgets her covenant with God.
18 Her house sinks down to death,
    and her paths go down to the shadowy dead.
19 All those who go to her will never return;
    they will never again reach the ways of the living.
20 So you should stay on the path of good people,
    guarding the road of the righteous.

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10 For wisdom will enter your heart,(A)
    and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11 Discretion will protect you,
    and understanding will guard you.(B)

12 Wisdom will save(C) you from the ways of wicked men,
    from men whose words are perverse,
13 who have left the straight paths
    to walk in dark ways,(D)
14 who delight in doing wrong
    and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,(E)
15 whose paths are crooked(F)
    and who are devious in their ways.(G)

16 Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman,(H)
    from the wayward woman with her seductive words,
17 who has left the partner of her youth
    and ignored the covenant she made before God.[a](I)
18 Surely her house leads down to death
    and her paths to the spirits of the dead.(J)
19 None who go to her return
    or attain the paths of life.(K)

20 Thus you will walk in the ways of the good
    and keep to the paths of the righteous.

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Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 2:17 Or covenant of her God