1 My son, take my words to heart and treasure my commandments within you.
2 Pay close attention to wisdom, and let your [mind and] heart (inner being) reach for discernment.
3 Call out for insight. Lift up your voice for understanding.
4 Search for wisdom as if it were silver. Hunt for it as if it were hidden treasure!
5 If you do these things you will have respect for Jehovah and you will find the true knowledge of God!
6 Jehovah gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He stores up insightful (sound) (substantial) wisdom for the upright. He is a shield for those who walk in integrity.
8 He guards those on paths of justice. He watches over the way of his godly ones.
9 You will understand righteousness and justice. You will have equity and every good course in life.
10 Wisdom enters your heart. Knowledge gives you pleasure.
11 Discretion will protect you. Understanding will watch over you.
12 It will deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things.
13 Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness?
14 Who rejoice in doing evil? They delight in the perversity of the wicked.
15 The wicked are crooked. They are devious in their ways.
16 You will be able to resist any immoral woman who tries to seduce you with her smooth talk.
17 She is unfaithful to her own husband and forgets her sacred vows to God.
18 If you go to her house, you are traveling the road to death. To go there is to approach the dead.
19 No one who visits her ever comes back. He cannot return to the road to life.
20 You must follow the example of good people and live a righteous life.
21 The upright will live in the land. The blameless people of integrity will remain.
22 The wicked will be cut off from the land. The unfaithful will be uprooted.