Moff PROV Chapter 2

2 

My son, if you take to heart what I say,

and set store by my commands,

2 

bending your ear to wisdom

and applying your mind to knowledge;

3 

if you cry to intelligence

and call for knowledge,

4 

seeking her out as silver

and searching for her like treasure;

5 

then you shall see what reverence for the Eternal is,

and find out what the knowlledge of God means

6 

(for it is the Eternal who supplies wisdom,

from him come insight and knowledge,

7 

he has help ready for the upright,

he is a shield for those who live honestly,

8 

a safeguard for the straight life,

a protection for the pious);

9 

then you shall understand duty and goodness,

and keep to every honest course,

20 

living the life of honest men

and keeping to the good man’s road.

10 

For wisdom will be welcome to your mind,

knowledge will be a joy to you,

11 

good sense will take charge of you,

sound judgment will keep you right,

12 

saving you from wicked courses,

from the self-willed speech of men

13 

who leave the paths of right

to follow some dark course,

14 

who delight in doing wrong,

who have joy in wilful wickedness,

15 

men of crooked courses

and of devious paths--

16 

saving you also from the loose woman,

the harlot with her words so smooth,

17 

who leaves her own husband,

forgetting her married troth before God;

18 

her house leads down to death,

her courses lead to death- land:

19 

none who visit her ever come back,

they never come out on the path of life.

21 

For upright men have lasting bliss,

and blameless men survive;

22 

but evil men are swept away,

and vicious men are rooted out.