Proverbs 2 — Dig for what lasts

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

²so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;

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

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

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

⁶For the LORD gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.

⁷He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,

⁸that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his saints.

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

¹⁰For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

¹¹Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,

¹²to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things,

¹³who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness,

¹⁴who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil,

¹⁵who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths,

¹⁶to deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words,

¹⁷who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God;

¹⁸for her house leads down to death, her paths to the departed spirits.

¹⁹None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life.

²⁰Therefore walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.

²¹For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.

²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.