It is good to acquire wisdom
1 ① My son, if you heed my words and value my commands, 2with your ear attentive to wisdom and your heart obedient to understanding; 3if you call for perception and raise your voice for in sight; 4if you seek it as silver and search for it more than any treasure 5then you will understand the fear of Yahweh, and you will find the knowledge of God.
6For Yahweh gives wisdom and from his mouth come knowledge and insight. 7He reserves his help for the upright and is a shield for those who walk in integrity; 8he guards the ways of the just and protects the steps of his faithful.
9Then you will understand justice, discernment and integrity – all that leads you to happiness.
10Wisdom will abide in your heart and knowledge will comfort your inner self. 11Foresight will guide you and understanding will protect you. 12It will guard you from evil, from people of misleading speech, 13from those who have abandoned the ways of honesty to walk the roads of darkness; 14they rejoice in evildoing, they revel in perversions; 15their paths are crooked and their ways devious.
16Wisdom keeps you from the alien woman, from the stranger with her smooth words, 17who deserts the partner of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God.
18For her house inclines towards death, her paths towards the grave. 19Those who go to her never return, they do not regain the paths of life.
20So you will walk along the way of the good, and keep to the paths of the virtuous. 21For the honest will inherit the land; the people of integrity will live on it.
22The evildoers instead will be cut off from the land. The wicked will be rooted out of it.
- Pro 2,1 The wisdom of God protects those who love it against evil influences. They are no longer like straw carried off by the wind, or in our world a number lost in the crowd, submissive to the pressure of media and the attractions of the consumer world. They resist the call of drunkards, of frivolous women and of unscrupulous companions.
