Proverbs 2— RSV

¹My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

²making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

³yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,

⁴if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures;

⁵then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

⁷he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

⁸guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his saints.

⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

¹¹discretion will watch over you; understanding will guard you;

¹²delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech,

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil;

¹⁵men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.

¹⁶You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adventuress with her smooth words,

¹⁷who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;

¹⁸for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the shades;

¹⁹none who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life.

²⁰So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it;

²²but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.