| English Standard Version | New Living Translation |
| 1My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you, | 1My child, listen to what I say, and treasure my commands. |
| 2making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding; | 2Tune your ears to wisdom, and concentrate on understanding. |
| 3yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, | 3Cry out for insight, and ask for understanding. |
| 4if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, | 4Search for them as you would for silver; seek them like hidden treasures. |
| 5then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God. | 5Then you will understand what it means to fear the LORD, and you will gain knowledge of God. |
| 6For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding; | 6For the LORD grants 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, | 7He grants a treasure of common sense to the honest. He is a shield to those who walk with integrity. |
| 8guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints. | 8He guards the paths of the just and protects those who are faithful to him. |
| 9Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path; | 9Then you will understand what is right, just, and fair, and you will find the right way to go. |
| 10for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul; | 10For wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will fill you with joy. |
| 11discretion will watch over you, understanding will guard you, | 11Wise choices will watch over you. Understanding will keep you safe. |
| 12delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech, | 12Wisdom will save you from evil people, from those whose words are twisted. |
| 13who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, | 13These men turn from the right way to walk down dark paths. |
| 14who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, | 14They take pleasure in doing wrong, and they enjoy the twisted ways of evil. |
| 15men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways. | 15Their actions are crooked, and their ways are wrong. |
| 16So you will be delivered from the forbidden woman, from the adulteress with her smooth words, | 16Wisdom will save you from the immoral woman, from the seductive words of the promiscuous woman. |
| 17who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God; | 17She has abandoned her husband and ignores the covenant she made before God. |
| 18for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the departed; | 18Entering her house leads to death; it is the road to the grave. |
| 19none who go to her come back, nor do they regain the paths of life. | 19The man who visits her is doomed. He will never reach the paths of life. |
| 20So you will walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous. | 20So follow the steps of the good, and stay on the paths of the righteous. |
| 21For the upright will inhabit the land, and those with integrity will remain in it, | 21For only the godly will live in 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. | 22But the wicked will be removed from the land, and the treacherous will be uprooted. |
| 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. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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