Proverbs 2 - ESV Bible - My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my...

1 ¹My son, ²if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,

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

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

4 if you seek it like ⁴silver and search for it as for ⁵hidden treasures,

5 then ⁶you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.

6 For ⁷the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is ⁸a shield to those who ⁹walk in integrity,

8 guarding the paths of justice and ¹⁰watching over the way of his ¹¹saints.

9 ¹²Then you will understand ¹³righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

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

11 ¹⁴discretion will ¹⁵watch over you, understanding will guard you,

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

13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to ¹⁶walk in the ways of darkness,

14 who ¹⁷rejoice in doing evil and ¹⁸delight in the perverseness of evil,

15 men whose ¹⁹paths are crooked, ²⁰and who are ²¹devious in their ways.

16 So ²²you will be delivered from the forbidden^a woman, from ²³the adulteress^b with ²⁴her smooth words,

17 who forsakes ²⁵the companion of her youth and forgets ²⁶the covenant of her God;

18 ²⁷for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed;^c

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

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

21 For the upright ²⁸will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it,

22 but the wicked will be ²⁹cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be ³⁰rooted out of it.

Proverbs 2 ESV