The Benefits of Wisdom

¹ My child, if you will receive¹ my sayings, and hide my commands with you,

1. Or “take, seize”

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,¹ if you lift² your voice for insight,

1. Or “call to understanding”
2. Or “carry, give”

⁴ if you seek her like silver and search her out ⌞like treasure⌟,¹

1. Literally “like the treasures”

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 stores¹ sound judgment, a shield for those who walk uprightly,

1. Or “hides, keeps”

⁸ in order to guard paths of justice and keep¹ the way of his faithful ones.

1. Or “preserve, guard, watch”

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.¹

1. Or “inner self”

¹¹ Discretion will watch over you; understanding will protect you,

¹² in order to deliver you from the way of evil,¹ from a man who speaks devious things—

1. Or “evildoer”

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⌟,¹ and devious in their paths;

1. Literally “that in their ways are crooked”

¹⁶ in order to deliver you from a strange woman, from a foreign woman who flatters¹ with her sayings,

1. Or “makes smooth”

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 dead¹ are her paths.

1. Or “Rephaim”

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,¹ and those who are blameless² will remain in it.

1. Or “earth”
2. Or “innocent”

²² And those who are wicked will be cut off from the land, and those who are treacherous will be uprooted from it.