The Benefits of Wisdom

1My son, if you receive my words

and you treasure my commands within you,

2to make your ear attentive to wisdom,

you incline your heart to understanding.

3For if you call out for understanding,

and for insight you give forth your voice,

4if you seek her like silver,

and like hidden treasures you search for her,

5then you will understand the fear of YHWH,

and the knowledge of God you will find.

6For YHWH gives wisdom;

from His mouth is knowledge and understanding.

7He stores up for the upright good sense—

protection for those walking with integrity.

8He watches over the paths of justice,

and the way of His holy ones He guards.

9Then you will understand righteousness and justice and uprightness,

every good path.

10For wisdom will enter into your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11Discretion will guard over you;

understanding will guard you,

12to snatch you from the way of evil,

from the man speaking perversity—

13those abandoning the paths of uprightness

to walk in the ways of darkness,

14those glad to do evil,

they rejoice in the perversity of evil,

15whose ways are crooked,

and who are turning aside in their paths.

16It will deliver you from a strange woman,†

from a foreign woman† having made smooth her words,

17the one having forsaken the guide of her youth,

and she has forgotten the covenant of her God.

18For her house sinks down to death,

and her paths to the Rephaim.†

19Of all those coming to her, none will return,

nor will they reach the paths of life.

20So you must walk in the way of the good ones,

and guard the paths of the righteous ones.

21For the upright will dwell in the land,

and the blameless ones will remain in it.

22And the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and treacherous ones

will be plucked out from it.