The Mind of God Sundays: Proverbs--Proverbs 2

¹My son, if you will receive my words
And treasure my commandments within you,
²Make your ear attentive to wisdom,
Incline your heart to understanding;
³For if you cry for discernment,
Lift your voice for understanding;
⁴If you seek her as silver
And search for her as for hidden treasures;
⁵Then you will discern the fear of the LORD
And discover the knowledge of God.
⁶For the LORD gives wisdom;
From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.
⁷He stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
⁸Guarding the paths of justice,
And He preserves the way of His godly ones.
⁹Then you will discern righteousness and justice
And equity and every good course.
¹⁰For wisdom will enter your heart
And knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹Discretion will guard you,
Understanding will watch over you,
¹²To deliver you from the way of evil,
From the man who speaks perverse things;
¹³From those who leave the paths of uprightness
To walk in the ways of darkness;
¹⁴Who delight in doing evil
And rejoice in the perversity of evil;
¹⁵Whose paths are crooked,
And who are devious in their ways;
¹⁶To deliver you from the strange woman,
From the adulteress who flatters with her words;
¹⁷That leaves the companion of her youth
And forgets the covenant of her God;
¹⁸For her house sinks down to death
And her tracks lead to the dead;
¹⁹None who go to her return again,
Nor do they reach the paths of life.
²⁰So you will walk in the way of good men
And keep to the paths of the righteous.
²¹For the upright will live in the land
And the blameless will remain in it;
²²But the wicked will be cut off from the land
And the treacherous will be uprooted from it.