Verse 1 My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you; Verse 2 So as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; Verse 3 Yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding; Verse 4 If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures: Verse 5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. Verse 6 For the Lord gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding. Verse 7 He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity; Verse 8 that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his holy ones. Verse 9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. Verse 10 For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul. Verse 11 Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you, Verse 12 to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things; Verse 13 who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Verse 14 who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil; Verse 15 who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths: Verse 16 To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words; Verse 17 who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God: Verse 18 for her house leads down to death, her paths to the dead. Verse 19 None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life: Verse 20 that you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. Verse 21 For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it. Verse 22 But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.