 1 My son, if you will receive my words and hide my commandments with you, 2 so that you attend to wisdom, you shall extend your heart to understanding; 3 yes, if you cry after knowledge and lift up your voice for understanding; 4 if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures, 5 then you shall understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. 6 For the Lord gives wisdom. Out of His mouth come knowledge and understanding. 7 He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous. He is a shield to those who walk uprightly. 8 He keeps the paths of judgment, and guards the way of His saints. 9 Then you will understand righteousness and judgment and honesty, every good path. 10 When wisdom enters into your heart and knowledge is pleasing to your soul, 11 good judgment will keep you. Understanding will keep you. 12 It will deliver you from the ways of the evil men, from those who speak wicked things. 13 Those who leave the paths of uprightness walk in the ways of darkness. 14 Those who rejoice to do evil and delight in the perversities of the wicked, 15 whose ways are crooked and are devious in their paths, 16 They will deliver you from the strange woman, the stranger who flatters with her words, 17 who forsakes the guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. 18 Her house bows down to death and her paths to the dead. 19 All who go in to her do not return. Nor do they take hold of the paths of life. 20 Walk in the way of good and keep the paths of the righteous. 21 For the upright will live in the land and the perfect will remain in it. 22 But the wicked will be cut off from the earth. The transgressors will be rooted out of it.
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