✧1My son, if thou wilt receive my words, And lay up my commandments with thee; ✧2So as to incline thine ear unto wisdom, And apply thy heart to understanding; ✧3Yea, if thou cry after discernment, And lift up thy voice for understanding; ✧4If thou seek her as silver, And search for her as for hid treasures: ✧5Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah, And find the knowledge of God. ✧6For Jehovah giveth wisdom; Out of his mouth [cometh] knowledge and understanding: ✧7He layeth up sound wisdom for the upright; [He is] a shield to them that walk in integrity; ✧8That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints. ✧9Then shalt thou understand righteousness and justice, And equity, [yea], every good path.
American Standard Version (ASV). American Standard Version (1901). Public domain.
✧10For wisdom shall enter into thy heart, And knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul;
✧11Discretion shall watch over thee; Understanding shall keep thee:
✧12To deliver thee from the way of evil, From the men that speak perverse things;
✧13Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;
✧14Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil;
✧15Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths:
✧16To deliver thee from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner that flattereth with her words;
✧17That forsaketh the friend of her youth, And forgetteth the covenant of her God:
✧18For her house inclineth unto death, And her paths unto the dead;
✧19None that go unto her return again, Neither do they attain unto the paths of life:
✧20That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.
✧21For the upright shall dwell in the land, And the perfect shall remain in it.
✧22But the wicked shall be cut off from the land, And the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.