[1] My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments with you;
[2] So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
[3] Yes, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding;
[4] If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures;
[5] Then shall you understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
[6] For the LORD gives wisdom: out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
[7] He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.
[8] He keeps the paths of judgment, and preserves the way of his saints.
[9] Then shall you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yes, every good path. ¶
[10] When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul;
[11] Discretion shall preserve you, understanding shall keep you:
[12] To deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaks fraudulent things;
[13] Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;
[14] Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
[15] Whose ways are crooked, and they fraudulent in their paths:
[16] To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words;
[17] Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.
[18] For her house inclines to death, and her paths to the dead.
[19] None that go to her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
[20] That you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
[21] For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.
[22] But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.
