Reward for the seeker of wisdom
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My son, if you accept my sayings, || And lay up my commands with you,
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To cause your ear to attend to wisdom, || You incline your heart to understanding,
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For if you call for intelligence, || [And] give forth your voice for intelligence,
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If you seek her as silver, || And search for her as hid treasures,
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Then you understand the fear of YHWH, || And you find the knowledge of God.
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For YHWH gives wisdom, || Knowledge and understanding from His mouth.
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Even to lay up substance for the upright, || A shield for those walking uprightly.
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To keep the paths of judgment, || And He preserves the way of His saints.
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Then you understand righteousness, || And judgment, and uprightness—every good path.
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For wisdom comes into your heart, || And knowledge is pleasant to your soul,
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Thoughtfulness watches over you, || Understanding keeps you,
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To deliver you from an evil way, || From any speaking contrary things,
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Who are forsaking paths of uprightness, || To walk in ways of darkness,
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Who are rejoicing to do evil, || They delight in [the] contrariness of the wicked,
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Whose paths [are] crooked, || Indeed, they are perverted in their ways.
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To deliver you from the strange woman, || From the stranger who has made her sayings smooth,
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Who is forsaking the guide of her youth, || And has forgotten the covenant of her God.
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For her house has inclined to death, || And her paths to Rephaim.
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None going in to her return, || Nor do they reach the paths of life.
Walking in the way of wisdom
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That you go in the way of the good, || And keep the paths of the righteous.
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For the upright inhabit the earth, || And the perfect are left in it,
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And the wicked are cut off from the earth, || And treacherous dealers plucked out of it!
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