The Benefits of Wisdom

1My son, if you will receive my words, and hide my commandments with you;

2So that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;

3Yes, if you cry after knowledge, and lift up your voice for understanding;

4If you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hid treasures;

5Then shall you understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.

6For the LORD gives wisdom: out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

7He lays up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly.

8He keeps the paths of judgment, and preserves the way of his saints.

9Then shall you understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yes, every good path.

10When wisdom enters into your heart, and knowledge is pleasant to your soul;

11Discretion shall preserve you, understanding shall keep you:

12To deliver you from the way of the evil man, from the man that speaks fraudulent things;

13Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness;

14Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;

15Whose ways are crooked, and they fraudulent in their paths:

16To deliver you from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flatters with her words;

17Which forsakes the guide of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God.

18For her house inclines to death, and her paths to the dead.

19None that go to her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life.

20That you may walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

21For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.

22But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.