| 1 | My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you; |
| 2 | So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; |
| 3 | Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding; |
| 4 | If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures: |
| 5 | Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God. |
| 6 | For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. |
| 7 | He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; |
| 8 | That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints. |
| 9 | Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path. |
| 10 | For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. |
| 11 | Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, |
| 12 | To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things; |
| 13 | Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness; |
| 14 | Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil; |
| 15 | Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths: |
| 16 | To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; |
| 17 | Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God: |
| 18 | For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead. |
| 19 | None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life: |
| 20 | That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous. |
| 21 | For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. |
| 22 | But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it. |