Proverbs 2

Tree of Life Version

2 My son, if you accept my words
    and treasure my mitzvot within you,
² making your ear attentive to wisdom,
    inclining your heart to discernment,
³ yes, if you call out for insight,
    lifting up your voice for discernment,
⁴ if you seek her as silver
    and search for her as for hidden treasures,
⁵ then you will know the fear of Adonai
and discover the knowledge of God.
⁶ For Adonai gives wisdom.^[a]
Out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
⁷ He stores up sound wisdom for the upright.
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity.
⁸ He guards the paths of justice,
and protects the way of His kedoshim.
⁹ Then you will discern what is right
    and just and fair—every good path.
¹⁰ For wisdom will enter your heart
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
¹¹ Discretion will watch over you
—discernment will guard you—
¹² to deliver you from the way of evil,
    from those speaking perverse things,
¹³ who leave the straight paths
    to walk in ways of darkness,
¹⁴ who rejoice in doing wrong
    and delight in the perversity of evil,
¹⁵ whose paths are crooked
    and are devious in their ways—
¹⁶ to deliver you from a seducing woman—
    a wayward wife with seductive words,
¹⁷ who forsakes the partner of her youth
    and forgets the covenant of her God.
¹⁸ For her house sinks down to death
and her tracks to the dead.
¹⁹ None who go to her return
nor 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 dwell in the land
and the blameless will remain in it.
²² But the wicked will be cut off from the land
and the treacherous uprooted from it.