Advice to the reader
   2   giving your attention to wisdom
  and your mind to understanding,
   3   if you summon discernment to your aid
  and invoke understanding,
   4   if you seek her out like silver
  and dig for her like buried treasure,
   5   then you will understand the fear of the Lord
  and attain to the knowledge of God;
   6   for the Lord bestows wisdom
  and teaches knowledge and understanding.
   7   Out of his store he endows the upright with ability
  as a shield for those who live blameless lives;
   8   for he guards the course of justice
  and keeps watch over the way of his loyal servants.


   9   Then you will understand what is right and just
  and keep ^note only to the good man's path;
   10   for wisdom will sink into your mind,
  and knowledge will be your heart's delight.
   11   Prudence will keep watch over you,
  understanding will guard you,
   12   it will save you from evil ways
  and from men whose talk is subversive,
   13   who forsake the honest course
  to walk in ways of darkness,
   14   who rejoice in doing evil
  and exult in evil and subversive acts,
   15   whose own ways are crooked,
  whose tracks are devious.
   16   It will save you from the adulteress, ^note
  from the loose woman ^note with her seductive words,
   17   who forsakes the teaching of her childhood
  and has forgotten the covenant of her God;
   18   for her path ^note runs downhill towards death,
  and her course is set for the land of the dead.
   19   No one who resorts to her ^note finds his way back
  or regains the path to life.


   20   See then that you follow the footsteps of good men
  and keep to the course of the righteous;
   21   for the upright shall dwell on earth
  and blameless men remain there;

Advice to the reader
   22   but the wicked shall be uprooted from it
    and traitors weeded out.

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