✧My 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. ✧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.