Son, if I receive the word of my commandment, hide it within yourself. Let your ear listen to wisdom, and apply your heart to your understanding; apply it as a punishment to your son. Or call on wisdom, and give your voice to reason, and seek feeling with a great voice. And if you seek it like silver and try it like treasure. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord, and you will find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom, and from His presence knowledge and understanding. And he treasures the salvation of those who correct, and protects their procession, even preserving the paths of justification, and he will preserve the path of those who reverence. Then you will understand the truth and judgment and correct all the good paths. If wisdom comes into your thought, your soul will feel the goodness of being. Good advice will keep you, but a similar thought will keep you. May he deliver you from the path of evil and from your husband, who says nothing is true. O those who have forsaken the right path to walk in the paths of darkness! O those who rejoice over the wicked, and rejoice over the corruption of evil!
And their paths are slanderous, and their course is crooked, even though they are far from the right path, and alien from the righteous mind. Son, let not evil counsel befall you, forsaking the teaching of youth and forgetting the Divine covenant. Place your house in death, and your deeds in hell with those on earth. All who walk on it will not return; they will follow the path of the upright, or attain years of life. Even if you had walked in good paths, you would have found right and smooth paths. Blazi will be the inhabitants of the earth, but those who are kind will remain on it. For the rulers will dwell on the earth, and the venerables will remain on it. The way of the wicked will perish from the earth, but the most wicked will be cast out from out of it.
Reading the book of Proverbs [2:1–22]
My son! If you, having accepted the words of my commandment, hide within yourself, your ear will listen to wisdom, you will apply your heart to understanding and offer it for teaching to your son, and if you call on wisdom and give your voice to understanding, and if you seek it like silver and inquire about it as if it were a treasure, then you will receive the fear of the Lord and gain the knowledge of God, because The Lord gives wisdom and from His presence knowledge and understanding; He protects those who accomplish salvation, He will protect their procession, guarding the paths of the commandments, and He will preserve the path of those who revere Him. Then you will understand justice and justice, and you will guide yourself in all good paths. For if wisdom enters your mind and knowledge seems good to your soul, good advice will protect you, holy thought will guard you, to save you from the evil path and from a man who says nothing true. O you who leave the right paths to walk in the paths of darkness! O you who delight in evil and rejoice in disastrous depravity! Their paths are crooked, and their ruts are dug. They will remove you from the right path and make you alien to true knowledge. My son!
Let not evil counsel take possession of you, abandoning the teachings of your youth and forgetting the divine covenant. For such a council has set up its house and its ways with the earthly beings in hell in the face of death. Everyone who follows him will not return, will not even find the right path and will not achieve longevity. For if they walked in good ways, they would find the paths of righteousness smooth: the good will live on the earth, and the blameless will remain in it. Because the just will inhabit the earth and the saints will abide in it; the ways of the wicked will disappear from the earth, and the wicked will be driven out of it.