Proverbs 2

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—

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

4if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,

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

6For Yahweh 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 faithful ones.

9Then you will understand righteousness and justice and fairness—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,

12rescuing you from the way of evil, from anyone who speaks perverse things,

13from those who leave the straight paths to walk in the ways of darkness,

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

15whose paths are crooked and whose ways are devious;

16rescuing you from the forbidden woman, from the foreign woman with her smooth words,

17who abandons the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

18For her house sinks down to death, and her paths lead down to the dead.

19No one who goes to her comes back; none of them reach the paths of life.

20So you will walk in the way of good people 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 treacherous will be torn out of it.