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