Proverbs 2

English Amplified

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1MY SON, if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you,

2Making your ear attentive to skillful and godly Wisdom and inclining and directing your heart and mind to understanding [applying all your powers to the quest for it];

3Yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,

4If you seek [Wisdom] as for silver and search for skillful and godly Wisdom as for hidden treasures,

5Then you will understand the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of [our omniscient] God. [Prov. 1:7.]

6For the Lord gives skillful and godly Wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

7He hides away sound and godly Wisdom and stores it for the righteous (those who are upright and in right standing with Him); He is a shield to those who walk uprightly and in integrity,

8That He may guard the paths of justice; yes, He preserves the way of His saints. [I Sam. 2:9; Ps. 66:8, 9.]

9Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and fair dealing [in every area and relation]; yes, you will understand every good path.

10For skillful and godly Wisdom shall enter into your heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to you.

11Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you,

12To deliver you from the way of evil and the evil men, from men who speak perverse things and are liars,

13Men who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,

14Who rejoice to do evil and delight in the perverseness of evil,

15Who are crooked in their ways, wayward and devious in their paths.

16[Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you] to deliver you from the alien woman, from the outsider with her flattering words, [Prov. 2:11.]

17Who forsakes the husband and guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.

18For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the spirits [of the dead].

19None who go to her return again, neither do they attain or regain the paths of life.

20So may you walk in the way of good men, and keep to the paths of the [consistently] righteous (the upright, in right standing with God).

21For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the men of integrity, blameless and complete [in God's sight], shall remain in it;

22But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.

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