1 My son, if you accept my words, And treasure up my commands with you,
2 So that you make your ear attend to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding;
3 For if you cry for discernment, Lift up your voice for understanding,
4 If you seek her as silver, And search for her as hidden treasures,
5 Then you would understand the fear of יהוה, And find the knowledge of Elohim.
6 For יהוה gives wisdom; Out of His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 And He treasures up stability for the straight, A shield to those walking blamelessly,
8 To watch over the paths of right-ruling, And the way of His kind ones He guards.
9 Then you would understand righteousness And right-ruling, and straightness – Every good path.
10 For wisdom would enter your heart, And knowledge be pleasant to your being,
11 Discretion would guard you; Understanding would watch over you,
12 To deliver you from the evil way, From the man who speaks perversities,
13 Those who leave the paths of straightness To walk in the ways of darkness;
14 Who rejoice to do evil; They delight in the perversities of evil;
15 Whose paths are crooked, And they are perverted in their ways;
16 To deliver you from the strange woman, From the foreigner who flatters with her words,
17 Who forsakes the companion of her youth, And has forgotten the covenant of her Elohim.
18 For her house has sunk down to death, And her paths to the dead;
19 None going in to her does return, Nor do they reach the paths of life –
20 So walk in the way of goodness, And guard the paths of righteousness.
21 For the straight shall dwell in the earth, And the perfect be left in it;
22 But the wrong shall be cut off from the earth, And the treacherous ones plucked out of it.