Proverbs 2

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

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

³yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding ,

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

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

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom ; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding ;

⁷he stores up sound wisdom for the upright ; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity ,

⁸guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints .

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

¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart , and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul ;

¹¹discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you,

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

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness ,

¹⁴who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil ,

¹⁵men whose paths are crooked , and who are devious in their ways .

¹⁶So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman , from the adulteress with her smooth words ,

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

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

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

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

²¹For the upright will inhabit the land , and those with integrity will remain in it,

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