Yahweh Gives Wisdom

1My son, if you will receive my words

And treasure my commandments within you,

2To make your ear pay attention to wisdom,

Incline your heart to discernment;

3For if you call out for understanding,

Give your voice for discernment;

4If you seek her as silver

And search for her as for hidden treasures;

5Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh

And find the knowledge of God.

6For Yahweh gives wisdom;

From His mouth come knowledge and discernment.

7He stores up sound wisdom for the upright,

A shield to those who walk in integrity,

8To guard the paths of justice,

And He keeps the way of His holy ones.

9Then you will understand righteousness and justice

And equity—every good track.

10For wisdom will enter your heart

And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

11Discretion will keep you,

Discernment will guard you,

12To deliver you from the way of evil,

From the man who speaks perverse things;

13From those who forsake the paths of uprightness

To walk in the ways of darkness;

14Who are glad to do evil

And they rejoice in the perversity of evil;

15Whose paths are crooked,

And who are devious in their tracks;

16To deliver you from the [†]strange woman,

From the [†]foreign woman who flatters with her words;

17Who forsakes the close companion of her youth

And forgets the covenant of her God;

18For her house [†]sinks down to death

And her tracks descend to the [†]dead;

19All who go to her will not return,

And they will not reach the paths of life.

20So that you will walk in the way of good men

And keep to 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 the treacherous will be torn away from it.