2 ¹ My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
2 ² making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
2 ³ yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
2 ⁴ if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures;
2 ⁵ then you will understand the fear of Yahweh
and find the knowledge of God.
2 ⁶ For Yahweh gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
2 ⁷ he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
2 ⁸ guarding the paths of justice
and preserving the way of his saints.
2 ⁹ Then you will understand righteousness
and justice and equity, every good path;
2 ¹⁰ for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
2 ¹¹ discretion will watch over you;
understanding will guard you;
2 ¹² delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
2 ¹³ who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
2 ¹⁴ who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil;
2 ¹⁵ men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.
2 ¹⁶ You will be saved from the loose woman,
from the adventuress with her smooth words,
2 ¹⁷ who forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God;
2 ¹⁸ for her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the shades;
2 ¹⁹ none who go to her come back
nor do they regain the paths of life.

2 ²⁰ So you will walk in the way of good men
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
2 ²¹ For the upright will inhabit the land,
and men of integrity will remain in it;
2 ²² but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.