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.