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2My child, if you accept my words
and treasure up my commandments within you,
²making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
³if you indeed cry out for insight,
and raise your voice for understanding;
⁴if you seek it like silver,
and search for it as for hidden treasures—
⁵then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
⁶For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
⁷he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,
⁸guarding the paths of justice
and preserving the way of his faithful ones.
⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹prudence will watch over you;
and understanding will guard you.
¹²It will save you from the way of evil,
from those who speak perversely,
¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
¹⁴who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil;
¹⁵those whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways. ¹⁶You will be saved from the loose woman,
from the adulteress with her smooth words,
¹⁷who forsakes the partner of her youth
and forgets her sacred covenant;
¹⁸for her way leads down to death,
and her paths to the shades;
¹⁹those who go to her never come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life. ²⁰Therefore walk in the way of the good,
and keep to the paths of the just.
²¹For the upright will abide in the land,
and the innocent will remain in it;
²²but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.