| 2.1 |
My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you; |
| 2.2 |
So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; |
| 2.3 |
Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding; |
| 2.4 |
If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: |
| 2.5 |
then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God. |
| 2.6 |
For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. |
| 2.7 |
He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; |
| 2.8 |
that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his saints. |
| 2.9 |
Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. |
| 2.10 |
For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. |
| 2.11 |
Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, |
| 2.12 |
to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things; |
| 2.13 |
who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; |
| 2.14 |
who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil; |
| 2.15 |
who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths: |
| 2.16 |
To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; |
| 2.17 |
who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God: |
| 2.18 |
for her house leads down to death, her paths to the departed spirits. |
| 2.19 |
None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life: |
| 2.20 |
that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. |
| 2.21 |
For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. |
| 2.22 |
But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it. |