Ecclesiastes 7

Wisdom

¹A good name is better than fine perfume,

and the day of death better than the day of birth.

²It is better to go to a house of mourning

than to go to a house of feasting,

for death is the destiny of everyone;

the living should take this to heart.

³Frustration is better than laughter,

because a sad face is good for the heart.

⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

⁵It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person

than to listen to the song of fools.

⁶Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,

so is the laughter of fools.

This too is meaningless.

⁷Extortion turns a wise person into a fool,

and a bribe corrupts the heart.

⁸The end of a matter is better than its beginning,

and patience is better than pride.

⁹Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit,

for anger resides in the lap of fools.

¹⁰Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?”

For it is not wise to ask such questions.

¹¹Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing

and benefits those who see the sun.

¹²Wisdom is a shelter

as money is a shelter,

but the advantage of knowledge is this:

Wisdom preserves those who have it.

¹³Consider what God has done:

Who can straighten

what he has made crooked?

¹⁴When times are good, be happy;

but when times are bad, consider this:

God has made the one

as well as the other.

Therefore, no one can discover

anything about their future.

¹⁵In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these:

the righteous perishing in their righteousness,

and the wicked living long in their wickedness.

¹⁶Do not be overrighteous,

neither be overwise—

why destroy yourself?

¹⁷Do not be overwicked,

and do not be a fool—

why die before your time?

¹⁸It is good to grasp the one

and not let go of the other.

Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.

¹⁹Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful

than ten rulers in a city.

²⁰Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous,

no one who does what is right and never sins.

²¹Do not pay attention to every word people say,

or you may hear your servant cursing you—

²²for you know in your heart

that many times you yourself have cursed others.

²³All this I tested by wisdom and I said,

“I am determined to be wise”—

but this was beyond me.

²⁴Whatever exists is far off and most profound—

who can discover it?

²⁵So I turned my mind to understand,

to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things

and to understand the stupidity of wickedness

and the madness of folly.

²⁶I find more bitter than death

the woman who is a snare,

whose heart is a trap

and whose hands are chains.

The man who pleases God will escape her,

but the sinner she will ensnare.

²⁷“Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have discovered:

“Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—

²⁸while I was still searching

but not finding—

I found one upright man among a thousand,

but not one upright woman among them all.

²⁹This only have I found:

God created mankind upright,

but they have gone in search of many schemes.”