Ecclesiastes 7

7 ¹ A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death than the day of birth. ² It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of everyone, and the living should take it to heart. ³ Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad face is good for 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 the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. ⁶ For like the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is fleeting. ⁷ Surely oppression turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart. ⁸ The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and a patient spirit is better than a proud spirit. ⁹ Do not be quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger settles in the lap of fools. ¹⁰ Do not say, "Why were the former days better than these?" For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. ¹¹ Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. ^a a v11 'Those who see the sun' is a Hebrew expression for the living — those still alive. ¹² For wisdom is a shelter, just as money is, but the advantage of knowledge is this: wisdom preserves the life of the one who has it. ¹³ Consider the work of God: who can straighten what he has made crooked? ¹⁴ In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that no one can find out anything that will come after them.

¹⁵ In my fleeting life I have seen both: a righteous person perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked person living long in his evildoing. ¹⁶ Do not be excessively righteous, and do not make yourself overly wise; why should you destroy yourself? ¹⁷ Do not be excessively wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time? ¹⁸ It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other, for whoever fears God will come through both. ¹⁹ Wisdom makes the wise person stronger than ten rulers who are in a city. ²⁰ Surely there is no one righteous on earth who does good and never sins. ²¹ Also, do not take to heart everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you ²² —for your own heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. ²³ All this I tested by wisdom. I said, "I am determined to be wise" — but it was far from me. ²⁴ Whatever exists is far off and deep, very deep — who can discover it? ²⁵ I turned my heart to know and to explore and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to understand the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. ²⁶ And I find the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net and whose hands are chains, more bitter than death. The one who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is captured by her.

²⁷ "See, this is what I have found," says the Teacher, "adding one thing to another to find the sum ²⁸ —which my soul kept seeking but I did not find. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I did not find. ²⁹ See, this alone I found: that God made humanity upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes."