Proverbs 2 / 31
- 1
(The Value of Wisdom)
My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
- 2
making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
- 3
yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
- 4
if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
- 5
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
- 6
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
- 7
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
- 8
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
- 9
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
- 10
for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
- 11
discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
- 12
delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
- 13
who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
- 14
who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
- 15
men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.
- 16
So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman,
from the adulteressHebrew foreign woman with her smooth words,
- 17
who forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God;
- 18
for her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the departed;
- 19
none who go to her come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.
- 20
So you will walk in the way of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
- 21
For the upright will inhabit the land,
and those with integrity will remain in it,
- 22
but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.