Proverbs 2

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

My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and lay up my commandments with thee;

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

So that thou make thine ear attend unto wisdom, and thy heart incline to discernment;

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

Yea, if thou call for understanding, and lift up thy voice for discernment;

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

If thou seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures;

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

Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.

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

For the LORD giveth wisdom, out of His mouth cometh knowledge and discernment;

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

He layeth up sound wisdom for the upright, He is a shield to them that walk in integrity;

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

That He may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of His godly ones.

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

Then shalt thou understand righteousness and justice, and equity, yea, every good path.

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

For wisdom shall enter into thy heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul;

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

Discretion shall watch over thee, discernment shall guard thee;

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

To deliver thee from the way of evil, from the men that speak froward things;

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

Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

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

Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of evil;

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

Who are crooked in their ways, and perverse in their paths;

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

To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the alien woman that maketh smooth her words;

17 and who leaves behind the Guide of her youth,

That forsaketh the lord of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.

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 sinketh down unto death, and her paths unto the shades;

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

None that go unto her return, neither do they attain unto the paths of life;

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

That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

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

For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the whole-hearted shall remain in it.

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

But the wicked shall be cut off from the land, and the faithless shall be plucked up out of it.