My son, if thou wilt receive my words,
And lay up my commandments with thee;
So as to incline thine ear unto wisdom,
And apply thy heart to understanding;
Yea, if thou cry after discernment,
And lift up thy voice for understanding;
If thou seek her as silver,
And search for her as for hid treasures:
Then shalt thou understand the fear of Jehovah,
And find the knowledge of God.
For Jehovah giveth wisdom;
Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding:
He layeth up sound wisdom for the upright;
{Or, And a shield for &c.}He is a shield to them that walk in integrity;
{Or, That they may keep}That he may guard the paths of justice,
{Or, Yea he preserveth}And preserve the way of his saints.
Then shalt thou understand righteousness and justice,
And equity, yea, every good path.
For wisdom shall enter into thy heart,
And knowledge shall be pleasant unto thy soul;
Discretion shall watch over thee;
Understanding shall keep thee:
To deliver thee from the way of {Or, the evil man}evil,
From the men that speak perverse things;
Who forsake the paths of uprightness,
To walk in the ways of darkness;
Who rejoice to do evil,
And delight in the perverseness of {Or, the evil man}evil;
Who are crooked in their ways,
And wayward in their paths:
To deliver thee from the strange woman,
Even from the foreigner that {Hebrew: maketh smooth her words.}flattereth with her words;
That forsaketh the {Or, guide}friend of her youth,
And forgetteth the covenant of her God:
For {Or, she sinketh down unto death, which is her house}her house inclineth unto death,
And her paths unto {Or, the shades Hebrew: Rephaim.}the dead;
None that go unto her return again,
Neither do they attain unto the paths of life:
That thou mayest walk in the way of good men,
And keep the paths of the righteous.
For the upright shall dwell in the {Or, earth}land,
And the perfect shall remain in it.
But the wicked shall be cut off from the {Or, earth}land,
And the treacherous shall be rooted out of it.
Querverweise zu Sprüche 2,2 Spr 2,2
He that separateth himself seeketh his own desire,And {Or, quarrelleth with}rageth against all sound wisdom.
Incline thine ear, and hear the words of the wise,And apply thy heart unto my knowledge.
For it is a pleasant thing if thou keep them within thee,If they be established together upon thy lips.
That thy trust may be in Jehovah,I have made them known to thee this day, even to thee.
Have not I written unto thee {The word is doubtful. Another reading is, heretofore.}excellent things {Or, in}Of counsels and knowledge,
To make thee know {Or, of a certainty the words &c.}the certainty of the words of truth,That thou mayest carry back words of truth to them that send thee?
Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage for ever;For they are the rejoicing of my heart.
Apply thy heart unto {Or, correction}instruction,And thine ears to the words of knowledge.
I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutesFor ever, even unto the end.
So teach us to number our days,That we may get us a heart of wisdom.
Incline your ear, and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
I turned about, and my heart was set to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the reason of things, and to know {Or, the wickedness of folly, and foolishness which is madness}that wickedness is folly, and that foolishness is madness.
He that hath ears {Some ancient authorities add here, and in verse 43, to hear: as in Mark 4:9; Luke 8:8.}, let him hear.
All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: {Or, what time one man had &c.}there is a time wherein one man hath power over another {Or, to his own hurt}to his hurt.
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the {Or, travail}business that is done upon the earth ( {Or, how that neither by day nor by night do men see sleep with their eyes}for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes),
Now these were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of the mind, examining the Scriptures daily, whether these things were so.