Proverbs 2:1-22 AMPC

[1] My son, if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you, [2] Making 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]; [3] Yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, [4] If you seek [Wisdom] as for silver and search for skillful and godly Wisdom as for hidden treasures, [5] Then you will understand the reverent and worshipful fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of [our omniscient] God. [6] For the Lord gives skillful and godly Wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. [7] He 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, [8] That He may guard the paths of justice; yes, He preserves the way of His saints. [9] Then you will understand righteousness, justice, and fair dealing [in every area and relation]; yes, you will understand every good path. [10] For skillful and godly Wisdom shall enter into your heart, and knowledge shall be pleasant to you. [11] Discretion shall watch over you, understanding shall keep you, [12] To deliver you from the way of evil and the evil men, from men who speak perverse things and are liars, [13] Men who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, [14] Who rejoice to do evil and delight in the perverseness of evil, [15] Who 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, [17] Who forsakes the husband and guide of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God. [18] For her house sinks down to death and her paths to the spirits [of the dead]. [19] None who go to her return again, neither do they attain or regain the paths of life. [20] So 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). [21] For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the men of integrity, blameless and complete [in God's sight], shall remain in it; [22] But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.