[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 call 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 watching over 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] So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress 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 departed;
[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 the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.
[21] For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with 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.