2 My son, if thou wilt receive my words,
And lay up my commandments with thee;
² So as to incline thine ear unto wisdom,
And apply thy heart to understanding;
³ Yea, if thou cry after discernment,
And lift up thy voice for understanding;
⁴ If thou seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hid treasures:
⁵ Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah,
And find the knowledge of God.
⁶ For Jehovah giveth wisdom;
Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding:
⁷ He layeth up sound wisdom for the upright;
^[a]He is a shield to them that walk in integrity;
^8 [b]That he may guard the paths of justice,
^[c]And preserve the way of his saints.
⁹ Then shalt thou understand righteousness and justice,
And equity, yea, every good path.
¹⁰ For wisdom shall enter into thy heart,
And knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul;
¹¹ Discretion shall watch over thee;
Understanding shall keep thee:
¹² To deliver thee from the way of ^[d]evil,
From the men that speak perverse things;
¹³ Who forsake the paths of uprightness,
To walk in the ways of darkness;
¹⁴ Who rejoice to do evil,
And delight in the perverseness of ^[e]evil;
¹⁵ Who are crooked in their ways,
And wayward in their paths:
¹⁶ To deliver thee from the strange woman,
Even from the foreigner that ^[f]flattereth with her words;
¹⁷ That forsaketh the ^[g]friend of her youth,
And forgetteth the covenant of her God:
¹⁸ For ^[h]her house inclineth unto death,
And her paths unto ^[i]the dead;
¹⁹ None that go unto her return again,
Neither do they attain unto the paths of life:
²⁰ That thou mayest walk in the way of good men,
And keep the paths of the righteous.
²¹ For the upright shall dwell in the ^[j]land,
And the perfect shall remain in it.
²² But the wicked shall be cut off from the land,
^[k]And the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.