1 My son, if thou wilt receive my words and hide my commandments within thee 2 so that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom and apply thine heart to intelligence, 3 yea, if thou criest for understanding and givest thy voice unto intelligence, 4 if thou seekest her as silver and searchest for her as for hid treasures, 5 then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the LORD gives wisdom; out of his mouth comes knowledge and intelligence. 7 He keeps the person of the upright; he is a buckler to those that walk perfectly, 8 keeping the paths of judgment and the way of his merciful ones. 9 Then shalt thou understand righteousness and judgment and equity, yea, every good path. 10 When wisdom enters into thine heart and knowledge is sweet unto thy soul, 11 discretion shall preserve thee, intelligence shall keep thee 12 to deliver thee from the evil way, from the man that speaks perversion, 13 who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, 14 who rejoice to do evil and delight in wicked perversion, 15 whose ways are crooked, and they are crooked in their paths;
16 to deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger who flatters with her words, 17 who forsakes the prince of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. 18 Therefore her house inclines unto death, and her paths unto the dead. 19 None that go unto her return again, neither do they take hold of the paths of life.
20 That thou may walk in the way of good men and keep the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it. 22 But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.