Chapter 2

  My son, if you will receive my words, And store up my commandments within you;  

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  So as to turn your ear to wisdom, And apply your heart to understanding;  

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  Yes, if you call out for discernment, And lift up your voice for understanding;  

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

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  Then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, And find the knowledge of God.  

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  For Yahweh gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.  

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

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  That he may guard the paths of justice, And preserve the way of his saints.  

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

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

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  Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,  

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  To deliver you from the way of evil, From the men who speak perverse things;  

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  Who forsake the paths of uprightness, To walk in the ways of darkness;  

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  Who rejoice to do evil, And delight in the perverseness of evil;  

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  Who are crooked in their ways, And wayward in their paths:  

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  To deliver you from the strange woman, Even from the foreigner who flatters with her words;  

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  Who forsakes the friend of her youth, And forgets the covenant of her God:  

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  For her house leads down to death, Her paths to the dead.  

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  None who go to her return again, Neither do they attain to the paths of life:  

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  That you may walk in the way of good men, And keep the paths of the righteous.  

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

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

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