Proverbs 2

New International Version

• 1. My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you,
• 2. turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,
• 3. and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,
• 4. and if you look for it as for silver and search for it as for hidden treasure,
• 5. then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
• 6. For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
• 7. He holds victory in store for the upright, he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
• 8. for he guards the course of the just and protects the way of his faithful ones.
• 9. Then you will understand what is right and just and fair-every good path.
• 10. For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
• 11. Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
• 12. Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men, from men whose words are perverse,
• 13. who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways,
• 14. who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
• 15. whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
• 16. It will save you also from the adulteress, from the wayward wife with her seductive words,
• 17. who has left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.
• 18. For her house leads down to death and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
• 19. None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
• 20. Thus you will walk in the ways of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.
• 21. For the upright will live in the land, and the blameless will remain in it;
• 22. but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be torn from it.

New International Version