Chapter 2

¹⁰ For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.

¹¹ Discretion will protect you,
and understanding will guard you.

¹² Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,

¹³ who leave the straight paths
to walk in dark ways,

¹⁴ who delight in doing wrong
and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,

¹⁵ whose paths are crooked
and who are devious in their ways.

¹⁶ It will save you also from the adulteress,
from the wayward wife with her seductive words,

¹⁷ who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.

¹⁸ For her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.

¹⁹ None who go to her return
or attain the paths of life.

²⁰ Thus you will walk in the ways of good men
and keep to the paths of the righteous.