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Proverbs 2
A single long sentence stretches across the chapter: a chain of "if" clauses (vv. 1-4) leading to a double "then" (vv. 5, 9). The condition is active searching, hunting wisdom "as for hidden treasures." The reward is protection, and the threats it guards against are named twice: men who "speak perverse things" and walk in darkness (vv. 12-15), and the flattering "strange woman" whose house leads down to death (vv. 16-19).
- 1
My son, if you will receive my words, and store up my commandments within you,
- 2
so as to turn your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding;
- 3
yes, if you call out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding;
- 4
if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures;
- 5
then you will understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God.
- 6
For the LORD gives wisdom. Out of his mouth comes knowledge and understanding.
- 7
He lays up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
- 8
that he may guard the paths of justice, and preserve the way of his saints.
- 9
Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path.
- 10
For wisdom will enter into your heart. Knowledge will be pleasant to your soul.
- 11
Discretion will watch over you. Understanding will keep you,
- 12
to deliver you from the way of evil, from the men who speak perverse things,
- 13
who forsake the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness,
- 14
who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the perverseness of evil,
- 15
who are crooked in their ways, and wayward in their paths,
- 16
to deliver you from the strange woman, even from the foreigner who flatters with her words,
- 17
who forsakes the friend of her youth, and forgets the covenant of her God;
- 18
for her house leads down to death, her paths to the departed spirits.
- 19
None who go to her return again, neither do they attain to the paths of life.
- 20
Therefore walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous.
- 21
For the upright will dwell in the land. The perfect will remain in it.
- 22
But the wicked will be cut off from the land. The treacherous will be rooted out of it.
An if-then built to rescue
The grammar carries the argument. Verses 1-4 stack the demands, receive, store up, call out, lift the voice, dig like a treasure-hunter, before the payoff finally lands in verse 5: you will understand the fear of the LORD.
What follows is a rescue map. The same word "deliver" introduces both dangers (vv. 12, 16), and both end in irreversible ruin, a path with no return (v. 19). The chapter closes on land: the upright remain in it, the wicked are rooted out.
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