Proverbs 2

1 My son, if you would accept my words, and conceal my commandments within you,

My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you;

2 so that your ears may listen to wisdom, then bend your heart in order to know prudence.

So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;

3 For if you would call upon wisdom and bend your heart to prudence,

Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding;

4 if you will seek her like money, and dig for her as if for treasure,

If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures:

5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and you will discover the knowledge of God.

then you will understand the fear of YHWH, and find the knowledge of God.

6 For the Lord bestows wisdom, and out of his mouth, prudence and knowledge.

For YHWH gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

7 He will preserve the salvation of the righteous, and he will protect those who walk in simplicity:

He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;

8 serving the paths of justice, and guarding the ways of sanctity.

that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his faithful ones.

9 Then you shall understand justice and judgment, and equity, and every good path.

Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.

10 If wisdom is to enter into your heart, and if knowledge is to become pleasing to your soul,

For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11 then counsel must guard you, and prudence must serve you,

Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

12 so that you may be rescued from the evil way, and from the man who speaks perversities,

to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things;

13 from those who leave the straight path to walk in dark ways,

who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

14 who rejoice when they have done evil, and who exult in the most wicked things.

who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil;

15 Their ways are perverse, and their steps are infamous.

who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths:

16 So may you be rescued from the foreign woman, and from the outsider, who softens her speech,

To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;

17 and who leaves behind the Guide of her youth,

who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God:

18 and who has forgotten the covenant of her God. For her household inclines toward death, and her paths toward Hell. (questioned)

for her house leads down to death, her paths to the dead.

19 All those who enter to her will not return again, nor will they take hold of the paths of life.

None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life:

20 So may you walk in the good way, and keep to the difficult paths of the just.

that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

21 For those who are upright shall live upon the earth, and the simple shall continue upon it.

For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

22 Yet truly, the impious shall perish from the earth, and those who act unjustly shall be taken away from it.

But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be uprooted out of it.