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.