Proverbs 2 - International Standard Version (ISV)

The Benefits of Embracing Wisdom

2 My son, if you accept my words,
and treasure my instructions[a]
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom,
and turning your heart to understanding—
3 if, indeed, you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
4 if you seek it like silver
and search for it like hidden treasure,
5 then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and learn to know God.

6 For the Lord gives wisdom,
and from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 He stores up sound wisdom for the upright
and is a shield to those who walk in integrity—
8 guarding the paths of the just
and protecting the way of his faithful ones.

9 Then you will understand what is right, just,
and upright—every good path.
10 For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

11 Discretion[b] will protect you;
understanding will watch over you,
12 delivering you from the way of evil,
from men who speak perverse things,
13 and from those who abandon the right[c] path
to travel along the ways of darkness;
14 who delight in doing evil,
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil;
15 whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways,
16 delivering you from the adulteress,
from the immoral[d] woman with her seductive words,
17 someone who abandoned the companion of her youth
and forgot the covenant of her God.
18 For her house leads down to death,
and her paths down to the realm of the dead.
19 None who go to her return,
nor do they reach the paths of life.

20 This is how you will walk in the way of good men
and will keep to the paths of the righteous.

21 For the upright will live in the land,
and people of integrity will remain in it.
22 But the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the treacherous will be uprooted from it.

Footnotes

  1. Proverbs 2:1 Lit. instructions within you
  2. Proverbs 2:11 Or Wise planning
  3. Proverbs 2:13 Lit. straight or upright
  4. Proverbs 2:16 Lit. foreign; i.e. one whose values are foreign to God’s Law

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2 My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you,2 so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;3 yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding;4 if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden tre...
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