1: My son, if thou dost accept my sayings, And my commands dost lay up with thee, 2: To cause thine ear to attend to wisdom, Thou inclinest thy heart to understanding, 3: For, if for intelligence thou callest, For understanding givest forth thy voice, 4: If thou dost seek her as silver, And as hid treasures searchest for her, 5: Then understandest thou fear of Jehovah, And knowledge of God thou findest. 6: For Jehovah giveth wisdom, From His mouth knowledge and understanding. 7: Even to lay up for the upright substance, A shield for those walking uprightly. 8: To keep the paths of judgment, And the way of His saints He preserveth. 9: Then understandest thou righteousness, And judgment, and uprightness -- every good path. 10: For wisdom cometh into thy heart, And knowledge to thy soul is pleasant, 11: Thoughtfulness doth watch over thee, Understanding doth keep thee, 12: To deliver thee from an evil way, From any speaking froward things, 13: Who are forsaking paths of uprightness, To walk in ways of darkness, 14: Who are rejoicing to do evil, They delight in frowardness of the wicked, 15: Whose paths [are] crooked, Yea, they are perverted in their ways. 16: To deliver thee from the strange woman, From the stranger who hath made smooth her sayings, 17: Who is forsaking the guide of her youth, And the covenant of her God hath forgotten. 18: For her house hath inclined unto death, And unto Rephaim her paths. 19: None going in unto her turn back, Nor do they reach the paths of life. 20: That thou dost go in the way of the good, And the paths of the righteous dost keep. 21: For the upright do inhabit the earth, And the perfect are left in it, 22: And the wicked from the earth are cut off, And treacherous dealers plucked out of it!
