1My son, if you accept my sayings, || And lay up my commands with you,

2To cause your ear to attend to wisdom, || You incline your heart to understanding,

3For if you call for intelligence, || [And] give forth your voice for intelligence,

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

5Then you understand the fear of YHWH, || And you find the knowledge of God.

6For YHWH gives wisdom, || Knowledge and understanding from His mouth.

7Even to lay up substance for the upright, || A shield for those walking uprightly.

8To keep the paths of judgment, || And He preserves the way of His saints.

9Then you understand righteousness, || And judgment, and uprightness—every good path.

10For wisdom comes into your heart, || And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,

11Thoughtfulness watches over you, || Understanding keeps you,

12To deliver you from an evil way, || From any speaking contrary things,

13Who are forsaking paths of uprightness, || To walk in ways of darkness,

14Who are rejoicing to do evil, || They delight in [the] contrariness of the wicked,

15Whose paths [are] crooked, || Indeed, they are perverted in their ways.

16To deliver you from the strange woman, || From the stranger who has made her sayings smooth,

17Who is forsaking the guide of her youth, || And has forgotten the covenant of her God.

18For her house has inclined to death, || And her paths to Rephaim.

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

20That you go in the way of the good, || And keep the paths of the righteous.

21For the upright inhabit the earth, || And the perfect are left in it,

22And the wicked are cut off from the earth, || And treacherous dealers plucked out of it!