2:1 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, |
2:2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; |
2:3 yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, |
2:4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures; |
2:5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. |
2:6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; |
2:7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity, |
2:8 guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his saints. |
2:9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; |
2:10 for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; |
2:11 discretion will watch over you; understanding will guard you; |
2:12 delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, |
2:13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, |
2:14 who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil; |
2:15 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. |
2:16 You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adventuress with her smooth words, |
2:17 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; |
2:18 for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the shades; |
2:19 none who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life. |
2:20 So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous. |
2:21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it; |
2:22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. |