Proverbs, 2

1. My child, if you take my words to heart, if you set store by my commandments,

1. My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

2. tuning your ear to wisdom, tuning your heart to understanding,

2. making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;

3. yes, if your plea is for clear perception, if you cry out for understanding,

3. yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,

4. if you look for it as though for silver, search for it as though for buried treasure,

4. if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures;

5. then you will understand what the fear of Yahweh is, and discover the knowledge of God.

5. then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

6. For Yahweh himself is giver of wisdom, from his mouth issue knowledge and understanding.

6. For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

7. He reserves his advice for the honest, a shield to those whose ways are sound;

7. he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

8. he stands guard over the paths of equity, he keeps watch over the way of those faithful to him.

8. guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his saints.

9. Then you will understand uprightness, equity and fair dealing, the paths that lead to happiness.

9. Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

10. When wisdom comes into your heart and knowledge fills your soul with delight,

10. for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

11. then prudence will be there to watch over you, and understanding will be your guardian

11. discretion will watch over you; understanding will guard you;

12. to keep you from the way that is evil, from those whose speech is deceitful,

12. delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech,

13. from those who leave the paths of honesty to walk the roads of darkness:

13. who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

14. those who find their joy in doing wrong, and their delight in deceitfulness,

14. who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil;

15. whose tracks are twisted, and the paths that they tread crooked.

15. men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.

16. To keep you, too, from the woman who belongs to another, from the stranger, with her wheedling words;

16. You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adventuress with her smooth words,

17. she has left the partner of her younger days, she has forgotten the covenant of her God;

17. who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;

18. her house is tilting towards Death, down to the Shades go her paths.

18. for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the shades;

19. Of those who go to her not one returns, they never regain the paths of life.

19. none who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life.

20. Thus you will tread the way of good people, persisting in the paths of the upright.

20. So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.

21. For the land will be for the honest to live in, the innocent will have it for their home;

21. For the upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it;

22. while the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the faithless rooted out of it.

22. but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.