1My child, if you accept my words and keep my commands close to you;
2listening closely to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding;
3Yes, if you call out for good judgment and raise your voice for understanding;
4If you seek it like silver and search for it like hidden treasures:
5then you will understand what it means to respect Yahweh and find the knowledge of God.
6For Yahweh gives wisdom. From his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7He stores up sound wisdom for honest people. He is a shield for those who live with integrity;
8so that he may guard the paths of justice and protect the way of his devoted followers.
9Then you will understand what is right and fair, justice and every good path.
10For wisdom will enter your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
11Good judgment will watch over you. Understanding will protect you,
12to rescue you from evil ways, from people who speak twisted things;
13who abandon the straight paths to walk in ways of darkness;
14who are happy doing evil and delight in the twistedness of evil;
15whose ways are crooked and whose paths are devious:
16I am here to save you from strange women, from the foreign woman who uses flattering words,
17who leaves the close friend of her youth and forgets the promise she made to her God.
18Her house is on a path that leads to death, her roads go down to the dead.
19None who go to her ever return, nor do they reach the paths of life.
20This is so you will walk in the way of good people and stay on the paths of those who do right.
21For honest people will live in the land, and those with integrity will remain in it.
22But wicked people will be removed from the land, and dishonest people will be uprooted from it.