2:1 My child, if you receive my words,
and store up my commands within you,
2:2 by making your ear attentive to wisdom,
and by turning your heart to understanding,
2:3 indeed, if you call out for discernment –
raise your voice for understanding –
2:4 if you seek it like silver,
and search for it like hidden treasure,
2:5 then you will understand how to fear the Lord,
and you will discover knowledge about God.
2:6 For the Lord gives wisdom,
and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
2:7 He stores up effective counsel for the upright,
and is like a shield for those who live with integrity,
2:8 to guard the paths of the righteous
and to protect the way of his pious ones.
2:9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity – every good way.
2:10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and moral knowledge will be attractive to you.
2:11 Discretion will protect you,
understanding will guard you,
2:12 to deliver you from the way of the wicked,
from those speaking perversity,
2:13 who leave the upright paths
to walk on the dark ways,
2:14 who delight in doing evil,
they rejoice in perverse evil;
2:15 whose paths are morally crooked,
and who are devious in their ways;
2:16 to deliver you from the adulteress,
from the sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words;
2:17 who leaves the husband from her younger days,
and forgets her marriage covenant made before God.
2:18 For her house sinks down to death,
and her paths lead to the place of the departed spirits.
2:19 None who go in to her will return,
nor will they reach the paths of life.
2:20 So you will walk in the way of good people,
and will keep on the paths of the righteous.