Ecclesiastes 7–8

WISE SAYINGS

7A good name is better than fine perfume,^aa

and the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth.^ab

²It is better to go to a house of mourning

than to go to a house of feasting,

since that is the end of all mankind,

and the living should take it to heart.^ac

³Grief is better than laughter,

for when a face is sad, a heart may be glad.^ad

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

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

⁵It is better to listen to rebuke from a wise person

than to listen to the song of fools,^ae

⁶for like the crackling of burning thorns under the pot,^af

so is the laughter of the fool.

This too is futile.

⁷Surely, the practice of extortion turns a wise person into a fool,^a

and a bribe corrupts the mind.^b

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

a patient spirit is better than a proud spirit.^c

⁹Don’t let your spirit rush to be angry,

for anger abides in the heart of fools.^d

¹⁰Don’t say, “Why were the former days better than these?”^e

since it is not wise of you to ask this.

¹¹Wisdom is as good as an inheritance

and an advantage to those who see the sun,

¹²because wisdom is protection as silver is protection;

but the advantage of knowledge

is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.^f

¹³Consider the work of God,^g

for who can straighten out

what he has made crooked?^h

¹⁴In the day of prosperity be joyful,ⁱ but in the day of adversity, consider: God has made the one as well as the other,^j so that no one can discover anything that will come after him.

AVOIDING EXTREMES

¹⁵In my futile life^A I have seen everything:^k someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness,^l and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil.^{m 16}Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise.ⁿ Why should you destroy yourself? ¹⁷Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time?^{o 18}It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand. For the one who fears God will end up with both of them.

¹⁹Wisdom makes the wise person stronger

than ten rulers of a city.^p

²⁰There is certainly no one righteous on the earth

who does good and never sins.^q

²¹Don’t pay attention^B to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you,^{r 22}for in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others.

WHAT THE TEACHER FOUND

²³I have tested all this by wisdom. I resolved, “I will be wise,” but it was beyond me. ²⁴What exists is beyond reach and very deep.^s Who can discover it? ²⁵I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom^t and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness. ²⁶And I find more bitter than death^u the woman who is a trap:^v her heart a net and her hands chains. The one who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her. ²⁷“Look,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find out the explanation, ²⁸which my soul continually searches for but does not find: I found one person in a thousand, but none of those was a woman.^{w 29}Only see this: I have discovered that God made people upright,^x but they pursued many schemes.”

WISDOM, AUTHORITIES, AND INEQUITIES

8Who is like the wise person, and who knows the interpretation of a matter? A person’s wisdom brightens his face, and the sternness of his face is changed.^y

²Keep^C the king’s command because of your oath made before God.^{z 3}Do not be in a hurry; leave his presence,^aa and don’t persist in a bad cause, since he will do whatever he wants. ⁴For the king’s word is authoritative, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”^{ab 5}The one who keeps a command will not experience anything harmful,^ac and a wise heart knows the right time and procedure. ⁶For every activity there is a right time and procedure,^ad even though a person’s troubles are heavy on him. ⁷Yet no one knows what will happen^ae because who can tell him what will happen? ⁸No one has authority over the wind^A to restrain it,^af and there is no authority over the day of death;^ag no one is discharged during battle, and wickedness will not allow those who practice it to escape. ⁹All this I have seen, applying my mind to all the work that is done under the sun, at a time when one person has authority over another to his harm.

¹⁰In such circumstances, I saw the wicked buried. They came and went from the holy place,^a and they were praised^B in the city where they did those things. This too is futile. ¹¹Because the sentence against an evil act is not carried out quickly,^b the heart of people is filled with the desire to commit evil. ¹²Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life,^c I also know that it will go well with God-fearing people,^d for they are reverent before him. ¹³However, it will not go well with the wicked,^e and they will not lengthen their days like a shadow,^f for they are not reverent before God.

¹⁴There is a futility that is done on the earth: there are righteous people who get what the actions of the wicked deserve,^g and there are wicked people who get what the actions of the righteous deserve.^h I say that this too is futile. ¹⁵So I commended enjoyment because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat, drink, and enjoy himself,ⁱ for this will accompany him in his labor during the days of his life that God gives him under the sun.

¹⁶When I applied my mind to know wisdom^j and to observe the activity that is done on the earth (even though one’s eyes do not close in sleep day or night), ¹⁷I observed all the work of God and concluded that a person is unable to discover the work that is done under the sun. Even though a person labors hard to explore it, he cannot find it;^k even if a wise person claims to know it, he is unable to discover it.