ULT PRO Chapter 2

2 My son, if you receive my sayings,

and my commandments you store up with you,

2 to cause your ear to be attentive to wisdom,

incline your heart to understanding—

3 indeed, if for understanding you call out,

for perception you lift up your voice,

4 if you seek it like silver

and like hidden treasures you search for it,

5 then you will understand the fear of Yahweh

and the knowledge of God you will find.

6 For Yahweh gives wisdom,

from his mouth are knowledge and understanding.

7 And he stores up[fn] for the upright ones sound wisdom;

a shield for those walking with integrity,

8 to guard the paths of justice,

and the way of his faithful ones he will preserve.

9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice and integrity—every good track.

10 For wisdom will enter into your heart,

and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11 Discretion will watch over you,

understanding will guard you,

12 to rescue you from the way of evil,

from a man who speaks perverse things,

13 the ones who forsake the paths of straightness

to walk in the ways of darkness,

14 the ones who are glad to do evil,

they rejoice in perverse things of evil,

15 whose paths are crooked

and who go astray in their tracks;

16 to rescue you from a strange woman,

from a foreign woman who makes her sayings smooth,

17 the one who forsakes the companion of her youth,

and the covenant of her God she has forgotten.

18 For her house sinks down to death

and her tracks to the spirits of dead ones.

19 All those who enter her will not return

and they will not reach the paths of life.

20 So you shall walk in the way of the good ones

and the paths of the righteous ones you shall keep.

21 For the upright ones will dwell in the land,

and the blameless ones will remain in it,

22 but wicked ones will be cut off from the land,

and the treacherous ones will be torn away from it.

Some versions omit And.