1My son, if you will receive my words, And lay up my commandments with you;
2So as to incline your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;
3Yes, if you cry out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding;
4If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures:
5Then you shall understand the fear of Yehovah, And find the knowledge of God.
6For Yehovah gives wisdom; Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding:
7He lays up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;
8That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints.
9Then you shall understand righteousness and justice, And equity, yes, every good path.
10For wisdom shall enter into your heart, And knowledge shall be pleasant to your soul;
11Discretion shall watch over you; Understanding shall keep you:
12To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things;
13Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;
14Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil;
15Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths:
16To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;
17Who forsakes the companion of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God:
18For her house inclines to death, And her paths to the dead;
19None who go to her return again, Nor do they attain to the paths of life:
20That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.
21For the upright shall dwell in the land, And the perfect shall remain in it.
22But the wicked shall be cut off from the land, And the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.