NETtext - Proverbs - 2

2:1  My child, if you receive my words, and store up my commands within you,

2:2  by making your ear attentive to wisdom, and by turning your heart to understanding,

2:3  indeed, if you call out for discernment - raise your voice for understanding -

2:4  if you seek it like silver, and search for it like hidden treasure,

2:5  then you will understand how to fear the Lord, and you will discover knowledge about God.

2:6  For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

2:7  He stores up effective counsel for the upright, and is like a shield for those who live with integrity,

2:8  to guard the paths of the righteous and to protect the way of his pious ones.

2:9  Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity - every good way.

2:10  For wisdom will enter your heart, and moral knowledge will be attractive to you.

2:11  Discretion will protect you, understanding will guard you,

2:12  to deliver you from the way of the wicked, from those speaking perversity,

2:13  who leave the upright paths to walk on the dark ways,

2:14  who delight in doing evil, they rejoice in perverse evil;

2:15  whose paths are morally crooked, and who are devious in their ways;

2:16  to deliver you from the adulteress, from the sexually loose woman who speaks flattering words;

2:17  who leaves the husband from her younger days, and forgets her marriage covenant made before God.

2:18  For her house sinks down to death, and her paths lead to the place of the departed spirits.

2:19  None who go in to her will return, nor will they reach the paths of life.

2:20  So you will walk in the way of good people, and will keep on the paths of the righteous.

2:21  For the upright will reside in the land, and those with integrity will remain in it,

2:22  but the wicked will be removed from the land, and the treacherous will be torn away from it.