Proverbs 2

¹ My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

² making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

³ yes, if you 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 in integrity,

⁸ guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his saints.

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 discretion will watch over you; understanding will guard you;

¹² delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech,

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 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.

¹⁶ You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adventuress with her smooth words,

¹⁷ who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;

¹⁸ for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the shades;

¹⁹ none who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life.

²⁰ So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹ For the upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it;

²² but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.