Proverbs 2

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

My son, if you will take my words to your heart, storing up my laws in your mind;

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

So that your ear gives attention to wisdom, and your heart is turned to knowledge;

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

Truly, if you are crying out for good sense, and your request is for knowledge;

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

If you are looking for her as for silver, and searching for her as for stored-up wealth;

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

Then the fear of the Lord will be clear to you, and knowledge of God will be yours.

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

For the Lord gives wisdom; out of his mouth come knowledge and reason:

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

He has salvation stored up for the upright, he is a breastplate to those in whom there is no evil;

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

He keeps watch on the ways which are right, and takes care of those who have the fear of him.

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

Then you will have knowledge of righteousness and right acting, and upright behaviour, even of every good way.

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

For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul;

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

Wise purposes will be watching over you, and knowledge will keep you;

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

Giving you salvation from the evil man, from those whose words are false;

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

Who give up the way of righteousness, to go by dark roads;

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

Who take pleasure in wrongdoing, and have joy in the evil designs of the sinner;

15 Their ways are perverse, and their steps are infamous.

Whose ways are not straight, and whose footsteps are turned to evil:

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

To take you out of the power of the strange woman, who says smooth words with her tongue;

17 and who leaves behind the Guide of her youth,

Who is false to the husband of her early years, and does not keep the agreement of her God in mind:

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

For her house is on the way down to death; her footsteps go down to the shades:

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

Those who go to her do not come back again; their feet do not keep in the ways of life:

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

So that you may go in the way of good men, and keep in the footsteps of the upright.

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

For the upright will be living in the land, and the good will have it for their heritage.

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

But sinners will be cut off from the land, and those whose acts are false will be uprooted.