Benefits of Seeking Wisdom

1My child, if you receive my words,

and store up my commands within you,

2by making your ear attentive to wisdom,

and by turning your heart to understanding,

3indeed, if you call out for discernment –

raise your voice for understanding –

4if you seek it like silver,

and search for it like hidden treasure,

5then you will understand how to fear the Lord,

and you will discover knowledge about God.

6For the Lord gives wisdom,

and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

7He stores up effective counsel for the upright,

and is like a shield for those who live with integrity,

8to guard the paths of the righteous

and to protect the way of his pious ones.

9Then you will understand righteousness and justice

and equity – every good way.

10For wisdom will enter your heart,

and moral knowledge will be attractive to you.

11Discretion will protect you,

understanding will guard you,

12to deliver you from the way of the wicked,

from those speaking perversity,

13who leave the upright paths

to walk on the dark ways,

14who delight in doing evil,

they rejoice in perverse evil;

15whose paths are morally crooked,

and who are devious in their ways;

16to deliver you from the adulteress,

from the sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words;

17who leaves the husband from her younger days,

and forgets her marriage covenant made before God.

18For her house sinks down to death,

and her paths lead to the place of the departed spirits.

19None who go in to her will return,

nor will they reach the paths of life.

20So you will walk in the way of good people,

and will keep on the paths of the righteous.

21For the upright will reside in the land,

and those with integrity will remain in it,

22but the wicked will be removed from the land,

and the treacherous will be torn away from it.