Ecclesiastes 7

1A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of one’s birth.

2It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for this is the end of everyone, and the living should take it to heart.

3Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad face can be 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 listen to the rebuke of the wise than to listen to the song of fools.

6For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.

7Surely extortion turns the wise into fools, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

8The end of a matter is better than its beginning; a patient spirit is better than a proud spirit.

9Do not be quick in spirit to become angry, for anger rests in the lap of fools.

10Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

11Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun.

12For wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: wisdom preserves the life of those who have it.

13Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked?

14In the day of prosperity, be glad, and in the day of adversity, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other, so that people cannot discover anything that will come after them.

15In my fleeting days I have seen everything: there is a righteous person who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked person who lives long in his wickedness.

16Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why destroy yourself?

17Do not be overly wicked, and do not be a fool. Why die before your time?

18It is good to hold on to the one and not let go of the other, for whoever fears God will come through them all.

19Wisdom makes the wise stronger than ten rulers in a city.

20Surely there is not a righteous person on earth who does good and never sins.

21Also, do not take to heart everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you.

22For your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others.

23All this I tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me.

24Whatever exists is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?

25So I turned my heart to know, to search out, and to seek wisdom and the reason of things, and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness.

26And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, whose heart is a net and whose hands are chains. The one who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is caught by her.

27“Look,” says the Teacher, “this is what I have found, adding one thing to another to find the sum,

28which I am still seeking but have not found: one man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found.

29See, this alone I have found: God made human beings upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”