Proverbs 2

1 My son, if you accept my words and hide my commandments within you,

My son, if you would accept my words, and conceal my commandments within you,

2 if you incline your ear to wisdom and direct your heart to understanding,

so that your ears may listen to wisdom, then bend your heart in order to know prudence.

3 if you truly call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding,

For if you would call upon wisdom and bend your heart to prudence,

4 if you seek it like silver and search it out like hidden treasure,

if you will seek her like money, and dig for her as if for treasure,

5 then you will discern the fear of the LORD and discover the knowledge of God.

then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and you will discover the knowledge of God.

6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

For the Lord bestows wisdom, and out of his mouth, prudence and knowledge.

7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk with integrity,

He will preserve the salvation of the righteous, and he will protect those who walk in simplicity:

8 to guard the paths of justice and protect the way of His saints.

serving the paths of justice, and guarding the ways of sanctity.

9 Then you will discern righteousness and justice and equity—every good path.

Then you shall understand justice and judgment, and equity, and every good path.

10 For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will delight your soul.

If wisdom is to enter into your heart, and if knowledge is to become pleasing to your soul,

11 Discretion will watch over you, and understanding will guard you,

then counsel must guard you, and prudence must serve you,

12 to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perversity,

so that you may be rescued from the evil way, and from the man who speaks perversities,

13 from those who leave the straight paths to walk in the ways of darkness,

from those who leave the straight path to walk in dark ways,

14 from those who enjoy doing evil and rejoice in the twistedness of evil,

who rejoice when they have done evil, and who exult in the most wicked things.

15 whose paths are crooked and whose ways are devious.

Their ways are perverse, and their steps are infamous.

16 It will rescue you from the forbidden woman, from the stranger with seductive words

So may you be rescued from the foreign woman, and from the outsider, who softens her speech,

17 who abandons the partner of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

and who leaves behind the Guide of her youth,

18 For her house sinks down to death, and her tracks to the departed spirits.

and who has forgotten the covenant of her God. For her household inclines toward death, and her paths toward Hell. (questioned)

19 None who go to her return or negotiate the paths of life.

All those who enter to her will not return again, nor will they take hold of the paths of life.

20 So you will follow in the ways of the good, and keep to the paths of the righteous.

So may you walk in the good way, and keep to the difficult paths of the just.

21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and the blameless will remain in it;

For those who are upright shall live upon the earth, and the simple shall continue upon it.

22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be uprooted.

Yet truly, the impious shall perish from the earth, and those who act unjustly shall be taken away from it.