Revised Standard Version RSV
Good News Translation GNT
1 My son, if you receive my words and treasure up my commandments with you,
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My child, learn what I teach you and never forget what I tell you to do.
2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
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Listen to what is wise and try to understand it.
3 yes, if you cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,
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Yes, beg for knowledge; plead for insight.
4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures;
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Look for it as hard as you would for silver or some hidden treasure.
5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.
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If you do, you will know what it means to fear the Lord and you will succeed in learning about God.
6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
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It is the Lord who gives wisdom; from him come knowledge and understanding.
7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
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He provides help and protection for those who are righteous and honest.
8 guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his saints.
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He protects those who treat others fairly, and guards those who are devoted to him.
9 Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
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If you listen to me, you will know what is right, just, and fair. You will know what you should do.
10 for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
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You will become wise, and your knowledge will give you pleasure.
11 discretion will watch over you; understanding will guard you;
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Your insight and understanding will protect you
12 delivering you from the way of evil, from men of perverted speech,
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and prevent you from doing the wrong thing. They will keep you away from people who stir up trouble by what they say -
13 who forsake the paths of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness,
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those who have abandoned a righteous life to live in the darkness of sin,
14 who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perverseness of evil;
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those who find pleasure in doing wrong and who enjoy senseless evil,
15 men whose paths are crooked, and who are devious in their ways.
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unreliable people who cannot be trusted.
16 You will be saved from the loose woman, from the adventuress with her smooth words,
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You will be able to resist any immoral woman who tries to seduce you with her smooth talk,
17 who forsakes the companion of her youth and forgets the covenant of her God;
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who is faithless to her own husband and forgets her sacred vows.
18 for her house sinks down to death, and her paths to the shades;
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If you go to her house, you are traveling the road to death. To go there is to approach the world of the dead.
19 none who go to her come back nor do they regain the paths of life.
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No one who visits her ever comes back. He never returns to the road to life.
20 So you will walk in the way of good men and keep to the paths of the righteous.
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So you must follow the example of good people and live a righteous life.
21 For the upright will inhabit the land, and men of integrity will remain in it;
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Righteous people - people of integrity - will live in this land of ours.
22 but the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it.
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But God will snatch the wicked from the land and pull sinners out of it like plants from the ground.
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1952 [2nd edition, 1971] by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.