Proverbs 2

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

My son, if you will take my words to your heart, storing up my laws in your mind;

2 make your ears pay attention to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding.

So that your ear gives attention to wisdom, and your heart is turned to knowledge;

3 If you cry out for understanding and raise your voice for it,

Truly, if you are crying out for good sense, and your request is for knowledge;

4 if you seek it like you would seek silver and search for understanding as you would seek hidden treasures,

If you are looking for her as for silver, and searching for her as for stored-up wealth;

5 then you will understand the fear of Yahweh and you will find the knowledge of God.

Then the fear of the Lord will be clear to you, and knowledge of God will be yours.

6 For Yahweh gives wisdom, from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

For the Lord gives wisdom; out of his mouth come knowledge and reason:

7 He stores up sound wisdom for those who please him, he is a shield for those who walk in integrity,

He has salvation stored up for the upright, he is a breastplate to those in whom there is no evil;

8 he guards the paths of justice and he will preserve the way of those who are faithful to him.

He keeps watch on the ways which are right, and takes care of those who have the fear of him.

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

Then you will have knowledge of righteousness and right acting, and upright behaviour, even of every good way.

10 For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul;

11 Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you.

Wise purposes will be watching over you, and knowledge will keep you;

12 They will rescue you from the way of evil, from those who speak perverse things,

Giving you salvation from the evil man, from those whose words are false;

13 who abandon the right paths and walk in the ways of darkness.

Who give up the way of righteousness, to go by dark roads;

14 They rejoice when they do evil and delight in the perversities of evil.

Who take pleasure in wrongdoing, and have joy in the evil designs of the sinner;

15 They follow crooked paths, and using deception they hide their tracks.

Whose ways are not straight, and whose footsteps are turned to evil:

16 Wisdom and discretion will save you from an adulterous woman, from an immoral woman and her flattering words.

To take you out of the power of the strange woman, who says smooth words with her tongue;

17 She forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

Who is false to the husband of her early years, and does not keep the agreement of her God in mind:

18 For her house leads down to death and her tracks will lead you to those in the grave.

For her house is on the way down to death; her footsteps go down to the shades:

19 All who go in to her will not return again and they will not find the paths of life.

Those who go to her do not come back again; their feet do not keep in the ways of life:

20 So you will walk in the way of good people and follow the paths of righteous people.

So that you may go in the way of good men, and keep in the footsteps of the upright.

21 For those doing right will make a home in the land, and those with integrity will remain in it.

For the upright will be living in the land, and the good will have it for their heritage.

22 But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the faithless will be cut off from it.

But sinners will be cut off from the land, and those whose acts are false will be uprooted.