| 1 | My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you, |
| 2 | making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; |
| 3 | if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding; |
| 4 | if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures — |
| 5 | then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. |
| 6 | For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; |
| 7 | he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly, |
| 8 | guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones. |
| 9 | Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; |
| 10 | for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; |
| 11 | prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you. |
| 12 | It will save you from the way of evil, from those who speak perversely, |
| 13 | who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, |
| 14 | who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil; |
| 15 | those whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. |
| 16 | You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, |
| 17 | who forsakes the partner of her youth and forgets her sacred covenant; |
| 18 | for her way leads down to death, and her paths to the shades; |
| 19 | those who go to her never come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. |
| 20 | Therefore walk in the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the just. |
| 21 | For the upright will abide in the land, and the innocent will remain in it; |
| 22 | but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. |