Chapter 2
1My son, if you will receive My words, and hide My commandments with you;
2So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
3Yea, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding;
4If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;
5Then will you understand the fear of AO, and find the knowledge of God.
6For AO gives wisdom: out of His mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
7He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: He is a shield to them that walk uprightly.
8He guards the paths of just, and preserves the way of His saints.
9Then will you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path.
10When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul;
11Discretion will protect you, understanding will guard you:
12To deliver you from the way of the wicked, from the men that speak froward things;
13Who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness;
14Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
15Whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths:
16To deliver you from the adulterous woman, even from the stranger who flatters with her words;
17Who forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.
18For her house inclines to death, and her paths to the dead.
19None that go to her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.
20That you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
21For the upright will live in the land, and the perfect will remain in it.
22But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors will be rooted out of it.