| 1 | My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you, | |
| 2 | turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding, | |
| 3 | and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding, | |
| 4 | and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure, | |
| 5 | then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. | |
| 6 | For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. | |
| 7 | He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless, | |
| 8 | for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones. | |
| 9 | Then you will understand what is right and just and fair--every good path. | |
| 10 | For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. | |
| 11 | Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you. | |
| 12 | Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse, | |
| 13 | who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways, | |
| 14 | who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil, | |
| 15 | whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways. | |
| 16 | It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words, | |
| 17 | who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God. | |
| 18 | For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead. | |
| 19 | None who go to her return or attain the paths of life. | |
| 20 | Thus you will walk in the ways of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous. | |
| 21 | For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; | |
| 22 | but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it. | |