¹My son, if you take my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

²so that your ear gives attention to wisdom and you incline your heart to understanding;

³indeed if you call out to understanding, and give your voice to understanding;

⁴if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures,

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

⁶For Yahweh gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

⁷He treasures up sound wisdom for the upright, a shield for those who walk in integrity,

⁸guarding the paths of justice, and he preserves the way of his faithful ones.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path.

¹⁰For wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your being.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you,

¹²to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perversities,

¹³those who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴those who are glad to do evil, who rejoice in the perversities of evil,

¹⁵whose paths are twisted, and devious in their tracks.

¹⁶to deliver you from the strange woman, from the foreign woman who dispenses her words.

¹⁷who leaves the intimate friend of her youth, and has forgotten the covenant of her God.

¹⁸For her house sinks down to death, and her tracks to the shades.

¹⁹None who go to her return, and do not reach the paths of life.

²⁰So that you may walk in the way of good people and keep the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it.

²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land, and those who deal treacherously will be torn away from it.