2:1  My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you;

2:2  So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;

2:3  Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding;

2:4  If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures:

2:5  Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God.

2:6  For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

2:7  He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;

2:8  That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints.

2:9  Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path.

2:10  For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

2:11  Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

2:12  To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things;

2:13  Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;

2:14  Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil;

2:15  Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths:

2:16  To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;

2:17  Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God:

2:18  For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead.

2:19  None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life:

2:20  That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.

2:21  For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

2:22  But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.