| Chapter 2 |
1 |
My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you; |
2 |
So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; |
3 |
Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding; |
4 |
If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures: |
5 |
Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God. |
6 |
For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. |
7 |
He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; |
8 |
That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints. |
9 |
Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path. |
10 |
For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. |
11 |
Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, |
12 |
To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who 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 evil; |
15 |
Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths: |
16 |
To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; |
17 |
Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God: |
18 |
For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead. |
19 |
None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life: |
20 |
That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous. |
21 |
For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. |
22 |
But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it. |