Proverbs 2

1. ¹My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you;
2. ²So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;
3. ³Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding;
4. ⁴If you seek her as silver, And search for her as for hidden treasures:
5. ⁵Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God.
6. ⁶For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
7. ⁷He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity;
8. ⁸That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints.
9. ⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice, Equity and every good path.
10. ¹⁰For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11. ¹¹Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,
12. ¹²To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things;
13. ¹³Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;
14. ¹⁴Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil;
15. ¹⁵Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths:
16. ¹⁶To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;
17. ¹⁷Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God:
18. ¹⁸For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead.
19. ¹⁹None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life:
20. ²⁰That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.
21. ²¹For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.
22. ²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.

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