Proverbs 2 - Modern English Version

The Value of Wisdom

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

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

³ yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding,

⁴ if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures,

⁵ then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

⁶ For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding;

⁷ He stores up sound wisdom for the righteous; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly;

⁸ He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of His faithful ones.

⁹ Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;

¹⁰ for wisdom will enter your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;

¹¹ discretion will preserve you, understanding will keep you,

¹² to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks perverse things,

¹³ from those who leave the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴ who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perversity of evil,

¹⁵ whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways;

¹⁶ to deliver you from the wayward woman, from the adulteress who flatters with her words,

¹⁷ who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

¹⁸ For her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the dead;

¹⁹ none who go to her return, nor do they regain the paths of life.

²⁰ Thus you walk in the way of the good and keep to the paths of the righteous.

²¹ For the upright will dwell in the land, and the innocent will remain in it,

²² but the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be rooted out of it.