The Benefits of Embracing Wisdom

1My son, if you accept my words,

and treasure my instructionsa —

2making your ear attentive to wisdom,

and turning your heart to understanding—

3if, indeed, you call out for insight

and raise your voice for understanding,

4if you seek it like silver

and search for it like hidden treasure,

5then you will understand the fear of the LORD

and learn to know God.

6For the LORD gives wisdom,

and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.

7He stores up sound wisdom for the upright

and is a shield to those who walk in integrity—

8guarding the paths of the just

and protecting the way of his faithful ones.

9Then you will understand what is right, just,

and upright—every good path.

10For wisdom will enter your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11Discretionb will protect you;

understanding will watch over you,

12delivering you from the way of evil,

from men who speak perverse things,

13and from those who abandon the rightc path

to travel along the ways of darkness;

14who delight in doing evil,

and rejoice in the perverseness of evil;

15whose paths are crooked

and who are devious in their ways,

16delivering you from the adulteress,

from the immorald woman with her seductive words,

17someone who abandoned the companion of her youth

and forgot the covenant of her God.

18For her house leads down to death,

and her paths down to the realm of the dead.

19None who go to her return,

nor do they reach the paths of life.

20This is how you will walk in the way of good men

and will keep to the paths of the righteous.

21For the upright will live in the land,

and people of integrity will remain in it.

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

and the treacherous will be uprooted from it.