Proverbs 2
1 My son, if you would accept my words, and conceal my commandments within you,
My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments with you;
2 so that your ears may listen to wisdom, then bend your heart in order to know prudence.
So that you incline your ear unto wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
3 For if you would call upon wisdom and bend your heart to prudence,
Yea, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding;
4 if you will seek her like money, and dig for her as if for treasure,
If you 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 shall you 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 gives wisdom: out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
7 He will preserve the salvation of the righteous, and he will protect those who walk in simplicity:
He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
8 serving the paths of justice, and guarding the ways of sanctity.
He keeps the paths of judgment, and perserves the way of his saints.
9 Then you shall understand justice and judgment, and equity, and every good path.
Then shall you understand righteousness, and judgment, 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,
When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto your soul;
11 then counsel must guard you, and prudence must serve you,
Discretion shall preserve you, understanding shall keep you:
12 so that you may be rescued from the evil way, and from the man who speaks perversities,
To deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaks perverse 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 perverseness of the wicked;
15 Their ways are perverse, and their steps are infamous.
Whose ways are crooked, and they perverse in their paths:
16 So may you be rescued from the foreign woman, and from the outsider, who softens her speech,
To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words;
17 and who leaves behind the Guide of her youth,
Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets 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 inclines unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
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 again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
20 So may you walk in the good way, and keep to the difficult paths of the just.
That you may 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 perfect 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 earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
