¹My son, if you accept my words

and store up my commands within you,

²turning your ear to wisdom

and applying your heart to understanding –

³indeed, if you call out for insight

and cry aloud for understanding,

⁴and if you look for it as for silver

and search for it as for hidden treasure,

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 holds success in store for the upright,

he is a shield to those whose way of life is blameless,

⁸for he guards the course of the just

and protects the way of his faithful ones.

⁹Then you will understand what is right and just

and fair – every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will enter your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

¹¹Discretion will protect you,

and understanding will guard you.

¹²Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,

from men whose words are perverse,

¹³who have left the straight paths

to walk in dark ways,

¹⁴who delight in doing wrong

and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,

¹⁵whose paths are crooked

and who are devious in their ways.

¹⁶Wisdom will save you also from the adulterous woman,

from the wayward woman with her seductive words,

¹⁷who has left the partner of her youth

and ignored the covenant she made before God.

¹⁸Surely her house leads down to death

and her paths to the spirits of the dead.

¹⁹None who go to her return

or attain the paths of life.

²⁰Thus you will walk in the ways of the good

and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will live in the land,

and the blameless will remain in it;

²²but the wicked will be cut off from the land,

and the unfaithful will be torn from it.