1My son, if you accept my words, And treasure up my commands with you,

2So that you make your ear attend to wisdom, Incline your heart to understanding;

3For if you cry for discernment, Lift up your voice for understanding,

4If you seek her as silver, And search for her as hidden treasures,

5Then you would understand the fear of יהוה, And find the knowledge of Elohim.

6For יהוה gives wisdom; Out of His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

7And He treasures up stability for the straight, A shield to those walking blamelessly,

8To watch over the paths of right-ruling, And the way of His kind ones He guards.

9Then you would understand righteousness And right-ruling, and straightness – Every good path.

10For wisdom would enter your heart, And knowledge be pleasant to your being,

11Discretion would guard you; Understanding would watch over you,

12To deliver you from the evil way, From the man who speaks perversities,

13Those who leave the paths of straightness To walk in the ways of darkness;

14Who rejoice to do evil; They delight in the perversities of evil;

15Whose paths are crooked, And they are perverted in their ways;

16To deliver you from the strange woman, From the foreigner who flatters with her words,

17Who forsakes the companion of her youth, And has forgotten the covenant of her Elohim.

18For her house has sunk down to death, And her paths to the dead;

19None going in to her does return, Nor do they reach the paths of life –

20So walk in the way of goodness, And guard the paths of righteousness.

21For the straight shall dwell in the earth, And the perfect be left in it;

22But the wrong shall be cut off from the earth, And the treacherous ones plucked out of it.