Proverbs 2 Lexham English Bible
The Benefits of Wisdom
2 My child, if you will receive[a] my sayings,
and hide my commands with you,
2 in order to incline your ear toward wisdom,
then you shall apply your heart to understanding.
3 For if you cry out for understanding,[b]
if you lift[c] your voice for insight,
4 if you seek her like silver
and search her out like treasure,[d]
5 then you will understand the fear of Yahweh,
and the knowledge of God you will find.
6 For Yahweh will give wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
7 For the upright, he stores[e] sound judgment, a shield for those who walk uprightly,
8 in order to guard paths of justice
and keep[f] the way of his faithful ones.
9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and uprightness—every good course—
10 for wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasing to your soul.[g]
11 Discretion will watch over you;
understanding will protect you,
12 in order to deliver you from the way of evil,[h]
from a man who speaks devious things—
13 those who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in ways of darkness,
14 those who are happy to do evil,
for they delight in the deviousness of evil,
15 who are crooked in their ways,[i]
and devious in their paths;
16 in order to deliver you from a strange woman,
from a foreign woman who flatters[j] with her sayings,
17 she who forsakes the partner of her youth
and has forgotten the covenant of her God,
18 for her house sinks to death,
and to the dead[k] are her paths.
19 Of all who go to her, none shall return,
nor do they reach paths of life.
20 So that you will walk on the road of those who are good,
and the paths of those who are righteous you shall keep.
21 For those who are upright will dwell in the land,[l]
and those who are blameless[m] will remain in it.
22 And those who are wicked will be cut off from the land,
and those who are treacherous will be uprooted from it.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 2:1 Or “take, seize”
- Proverbs 2:3 Or “call to understanding”
- Proverbs 2:3 Or “carry, give”
- Proverbs 2:4 Literally “like the treasures”
- Proverbs 2:7 Or “hides, keeps”
- Proverbs 2:8 Or “preserve, guard, watch”
- Proverbs 2:10 Or “inner self”
- Proverbs 2:12 Or “evildoer”
- Proverbs 2:15 Literally “that in their ways are crooked”
- Proverbs 2:16 Or “makes smooth”
- Proverbs 2:18 Or “Rephaim”
- Proverbs 2:21 Or “earth”
- Proverbs 2:21 Or “innocent”
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