1 MY SON, if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, 2 Making your ear attentive to skillful and godly 1 Wisdom and inclining and directing your heart and mind to understanding [applying all your powers to the quest for it]; 3 Yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, 4 If you seek [Wisdom] as for silver and search for skillful and godly Wisdom as for hidden treasures, 5 Then you will understand the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of [our omniscient] God. 6 For the Lord gives skillful and godly Wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7 He hides away sound and godly Wisdom and stores it for the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with Him); He is a shield to those who walk uprightly and in integrity, 8 That He may guard the paths of justice; yes, He preserves the way of His saints. 9 Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and fair dealing [in every area and relation]; yes, you will understand every good path. 10 For skillful and godly Wisdom shall enter into your heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to you. 11 Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you, 12 To deliver you from the way of evil and the evil men, from men who speak perverse things and are liars, 13 Men who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, 14 Who rejoice to do evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, 15 Who are crooked in their ways, wayward and devious in their paths.
16 [Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you] to deliver you from the alien woman, from the outsider with her flattering words, 17 Who forsakes the husband and guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. 18 For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the spirits [of the dead]. 19 None who go to her return again, neither do they attain or regain the paths of life.
20 So may you walk in the way of good men, and keep to the paths of the [consistently] righteous (the upright, in right standing with God). 21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the men of integrity, blameless and complete [in God's sight], shall remain in it; 22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.