¹My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you; ²So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; ³Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding; ⁴If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: ⁵then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and find the knowledge of God. ⁶For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. ⁷He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; ⁸that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his saints. ⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. ¹⁰For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. ¹¹Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, ¹²to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things; ¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; ¹⁴who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil; ¹⁵who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths: ¹⁶To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; ¹⁷who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God: