Ecclesiastes 7

1 A good name is better than good oil, and the day of death than the day of birth. 2 It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because this is the end of every person, and the living will take the warning to heart. 3 Anger is better than laughter, because a sad face improves the heart. 4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure. 5 It is better to hear a wise person’s rebuke than to listen to the song of fools. 6 Like the sound of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of fools. This too is futile.

7 Oppression drives a wise person mad and destroys his noble heart. 8 The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. 9 Do not be quick in your spirit to become angry, because anger rests in the heart of fools. 10 Do not say, “Why were the former days better than these?” because you do not ask this from wisdom. 11 Wisdom is good together with an inheritance, and it gives an advantage to those who see the sun. 12 For wisdom provides shelter just as silver provides shelter, but the advantage of knowing wisdom is that it gives life to the one who has it. 13 Look at God’s works: who can put right the person God has made crooked? 14 In a day of prosperity, live joyfully; in a day of adversity, consider this: God has made the one correspond to the other, concerning speech, so that a person cannot discover anything that comes after him.

15 I have seen everything during the days of my futility: a righteous person perishing in his righteousness and an ungodly person continuing in his wickedness. 16 Do not become excessively righteous or act overly wise, or you may be stunned. 17 Do not act excessively ungodly or become hard, so that you do not die before your time. 18 It is good to hold on to this and not withdraw your hand from that, because the one who fears God will come through them all. 19 Wisdom will help the wise more than ten rulers who are in the city. 20 For there is no righteous person on earth who does good and never sins. 21 Also, do not take to heart every word people say, so that you do not hear your slave cursing you. 22 For many times he will act wickedly toward you and repeatedly hurt your heart, just as you too have cursed others.

23 I tested all this with wisdom. I said, “I will become wise,” 24 but wisdom was far from me—farther than what was already far away, and deep beyond depth. Who can find it? 25 I and my heart went around seeking to know and examine wisdom and the explanation of things, and to know the folly, trouble, and madness of the ungodly person. 26 I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net and whose hands are bonds. The one who is good before God will escape her, but the sinner will be caught by her. 27 “Look, this is what I found,” said the Speaker, examining one thing after another to find an explanation. 28 “My soul kept seeking, but I did not find it. I found one man among a thousand, but among all these I did not find a woman. 29 But look, this is what I found: God made humanity upright, but they sought out many schemes.”