2:1 | My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, |
2:2 | turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, |
2:3 | and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, |
2:4 | and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, |
2:5 | then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. |
2:6 | For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. |
2:7 | He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, |
2:8 | for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. |
2:9 | Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path. |
2:10 | For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. |
2:11 | Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. |
2:12 | Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, |
2:13 | who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, |
2:14 | who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, |
2:15 | whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. |
2:16 | It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, |
2:17 | who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. |
2:18 | For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. |
2:19 | None who go to her return or attain the paths of life. |
2:20 | Thus you will walk in the ways of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous. |
2:21 | For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; |
2:22 | but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it. |
| |