Proverbs 2
English Standard Version

The Value of Wisdom

1My son, if you receive my words
and treasure up my commandments with you,
2making your ear attentive to wisdom
and inclining your heart to understanding;
3yes, if you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4if you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
5then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God.
6For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
8guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
9Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
10for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
11discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
12delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
13who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
14who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
15men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.

16So you will be delivered from the forbiddena woman,
from the adulteressb with her smooth words,
17who forsakes the companion of her youth
and forgets the covenant of her God;
18for her house sinks down to death,
and her paths to the departed;c
19none who go to her come back,
nor do they regain the paths of life.

20So you will walk in the way of the good
and keep to the paths of the righteous.
21For the upright will inhabit the land,
and those with integrity will remain in it,
22but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.


Footnotes:
a 16 Hebrew strange
b 16 Hebrew foreign woman
c 18 Hebrew to the Rephaim
ESV Text Edition® (2016).

The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved.

The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) is adapted from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.

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