[1] My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you; [2] So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding; [3] Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding; [4] If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures: [5] Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God. [6] For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. [7] He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; [8] That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints. [9] Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path. [10] For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. [11] Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, [12] To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things; [13] Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness; [14] Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil; [15] Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths: [16] To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; [17] Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God: [18] For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead. [19] None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life: [20] That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous. [21] For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. [22] But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.