2:1 MY SON, if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, |
2:2 Making your ear attentive to skillful {and} godly Wisdom {and} inclining and directing your heart {and} mind to understanding [applying all your powers to the quest for it]; |
2:3 Yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, |
2:4 If you seek [Wisdom] as for silver and search for skillful {and} godly Wisdom as for hidden treasures, |
2:5 Then you will understand the reverent {and} worshipful fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of [our omniscient] God. |
2:6 For the Lord gives skillful {and} godly Wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. |
2:7 He hides away sound {and} godly Wisdom {and} stores it for the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with Him); He is a shield to those who walk uprightly {and} in integrity, |
2:8 That He may guard the paths of justice; yes, He preserves the way of His saints. |
2:9 Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and fair dealing [in every area and relation]; yes, you will understand every good path. |
2:10 For skillful {and} godly Wisdom shall enter into your heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to you. |
2:11 Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you, |
2:12 To deliver you from the way of evil {and} the evil men, from men who speak perverse things {and} are liars, |
2:13 Men who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, |
2:14 Who rejoice to do evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, |
2:15 Who are crooked in their ways, wayward {and} devious in their paths. |
2:16 [Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you] to deliver you from the alien woman, from the outsider with her flattering words, |
2:17 Who forsakes the husband {and} guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. |
2:18 For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the spirits [of the dead]. |
2:19 None who go to her return again, neither do they attain {or} regain the paths of life. |
2:20 So may you walk in the way of good men, and keep to the paths of the [consistently] righteous (the upright, in right standing with God). |
2:21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the men of integrity, blameless {and} complete [in God's sight], shall remain in it; |
2:22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the treacherous shall be rooted out of it. |