Proverbs 2

The Benefits of Wisdom

2 My child, if you will receive[fn] my sayings,
- and hide my commands with you,
2 in order to incline your ear toward wisdom,
- then you shall apply your heart to understanding.
3 For if you cry out for understanding,[fn]
- if you lift[fn] your voice for insight,
4 if you seek her like silver
- and search her out like treasure ,[fn]
5 then you will understand the fear of Yahweh,
- and the knowledge of God you will find.
6 For Yahweh will give wisdom;
- from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 For the upright, he stores[fn] sound judgment, a shield for those who walk uprightly,
8 in order to guard paths of justice
- and keep[fn] the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
- and uprightness—every good course—
10 for wisdom will enter your heart,
- and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul.[fn]
11 Discretion will watch over you;
- understanding will protect you,
12 in order to deliver you from the way of evil,[fn]
- from a man who speaks devious things—
13 those who forsake the paths of uprightness
- to walk in ways of darkness,
14 those who are happy to do evil,
- for they delight in the deviousness of evil,
15 who are crooked in their ways ,[fn]
- and devious in their paths;
16 in order to deliver you from a strange woman,
- from a foreign woman who flatters[fn] with her sayings,
17 she who forsakes the partner of her youth
- and has forgotten the covenant of her God,
18 for her house sinks to death,
- and to the dead[fn] are her paths.
19 Of all who go to her, none shall return,
- nor do they reach paths of life.
20 So that you will walk on the road of those who are good,
- and the paths of those who are righteous you shall keep.
21 For those who are upright will dwell in the land,[fn]
- and those who are blameless[fn] will remain in it.
22 And those who are wicked will be cut off from the land,
- and those who are treacherous will be uprooted from it.

2:? Or “take, seize”

2:? Or “call to understanding”

2:? Or “carry, give”

2:? Literally “like the treasures”

2:? Or “hides, keeps”

2:? Or “preserve, guard, watch”

2:? Or “inner self”

2:? Or “evildoer”

2:? Literally “that in their ways are crooked”

2:? Or “makes smooth”

2:? Or “Rephaim”

2:? Or “earth”

2:? Or “innocent”

LEB PROV Chapter 2