^{1 Ref} My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you;

^{2 Ref} So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;

^{3 Ref} Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding;

^{4 Ref} If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures:

^{5 Ref} Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God.

^{6 Ref} For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

^{7 Ref} He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;

^{8 Ref} That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints.

^{9 Ref} Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path.

^{10 Ref} For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

^{11 Ref} Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

^{12 Ref} To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things;

^{13 Ref} Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;

^{14 Ref} Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil;

^{15 Ref} Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths:

^{16 Ref} To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;

^{17 Ref} Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God:

^{18 Ref} For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead.

^{19 Ref} None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life:

^{20 Ref} That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.

^{21 Ref} For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

^{22 Ref} But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.