Proverbs 2

My son, listen to what I say, and consider my commands to be as valuable as a treasure.

Pay attention to wisdom and try hard to understand what is wise.

Call out to God to get insight; plead with him to help you understand more of what he wants you to know.

Search eagerly for wisdom, like you would search for silver— like you would search for a treasure that someone has hidden.

If you do that, you will understand how to give God the respect he deserves, and you will succeed in knowing God.

God is the one who gives us wisdom. He is the one who tells us things that we need to know and understand.

He stores up good advice so he can give it to those who honor him by the way they live their lives. He protects those who do with their lives what they say with their lips.

He guards justice and works to see it is done, and he keeps safe those who are faithful to him.

You will understand what God sees is right and what God determines is just to do, and he will show you the best way to live.

Wisdom will fill your life; knowing what God wants you to know will cause you to be joyful.

You will learn to tell the difference between right and wrong and that will keep you safe.

You will not do what God forbids you to do, and you will stay away from those who imagine horrible things and talk about them.

They go the wrong way, and they walk where there is no light.

They are glad when they do what is wrong; they twist good things into bad and enjoy doing what they know is wrong.

They bend the truth and live by deception and their lies hide what they have done.

Wisdom will keep you safe from the adulterous woman, and will keep you away from an immoral woman who invites you to be with her.

Those women left the husbands they married when they were young; they forgot the promise they made to God to love only the one they married.

Those who enter her house are taken to their death because the way to her house takes them where dead people are buried.

All who go to her to sleep with her have no way to get out of her house; they will be so lost they will never find the way back to life.

You must live your life in the same way that good men are living. You should do the same things as those who do what is right.

Those who do what is right will receive the land as a gift from God, and only those who do what they have promised will stay in the land for a long time.

Those who do bad things will have no claim to this land, and people who take advantage of others and do not keep their word will never have even a small part of the land.