The Benefits of Wisdom

1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and wilt hide my commands with thee;

2To attend to wisdom thou wilt incline thine ear, thy heart to understanding;

3For if thou will call to understanding, wilt give thy voice to understanding.

4If thou wilt seek her as silver, and dig for her as hidden treasure;

5Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah, and thou shalt find the knowledge of God.

6For Jehovah will give wisdom: from his mouth knowledge and understanding.

7He treasured up deliverance for the upright: a shield to those going in uprightness:

8To guard the paths of judgment, and he will watch the way of his godly ones.

9Then thou shalt understand justice and judgment and uprightness; every good track.

10For wisdom shall come into thy heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to thy soul.

11Meditation shall watch over thee, understanding shall guard thee:

12To deliver thee from the evil way, from the man speaking deceit;

13Those forsaking the paths of straightness to go in the ways of darkness;

14Those rejoicing to do evil will exult in the deceit of evil;

15Whose paths are perverted, and in their tracks are bent aside:

16To deliver thee from the strange woman, from the stranger making smooth her sayings;

17Forsaking the friend of her youth, and forgetting the covenant of her God.

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

19All going in it shall not turn back, and they shall not overtake the paths of life.

20So that thou shalt go in the way of the good, and thou shalt watch the paths of the just.

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

22And the unjust shall be cut off from the land, and they transgressing shall be wiped off from it.