Moral Benefits of Wisdom
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My son, if you accept my words and store up my commands within you.
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turning your ear to wisdom and applying your heart to understanding,
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and if you call out for insight and cry aloud for understanding,
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and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
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then you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
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For the LORD gives wisdom, and from his mouth come
knowledge and understanding.
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He holds victory in store for the upright,
he is a shield to those whose walk is blameless,
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for he guards the course of the just
and protect the way of his faithful ones.
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Then you will understand what is right and just and fair - every good path.
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For wisdom will enter your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
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Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you.
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Wisdom will save you from the ways of wicked men,
from men whose words are perverse,
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who leave the straight paths to walk in dark ways,
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who delight in doing wrong and rejoice in the perverseness of evil,
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whose paths are crooked and who are devious in their ways.
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It willsave you also from the adulteress,
from the wayward wife with her seductive words,
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who has left the partner of her youth
and ignored the covenant she made before God.
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For her house leads down to death
and her paths to the spirits of the dead.
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None who go to her return or attain the paths of life.
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Thus you will walk in the ways of good men
and keep to the paths of the religeous.
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For the upright will ive in the land,
and the blameless will remain in it;
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but the wicked will be cut off from the land,
and the unfaithful will be torn from it.
