¹ My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments with you; ² So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; ³ Yes, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding; ⁴ If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures; ⁵ Then will you 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 understanding. ⁷ He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. ⁸ He keeps the paths of judgment, and preserves the way of his saints. ⁹ Then will you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yes, every good path. ¹⁰ When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul; ¹¹ Discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you ¹² To deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaks perverse things; ¹³ Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; ¹⁴ Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of the wicked; ¹⁵ Whose ways are crooked, and they perverse in their paths ¹⁶ To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words; ¹⁷ Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God. ¹⁸ For her house inclines to death, and her paths to the dead. ¹⁹ None that go to her return again, neither do they take hold of the paths of life. ²⁰ That you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. ²¹ For the upright will dwell in the land, and the perfect will remain in it. ²² But the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors will be rooted out of it.