Ecclesiastes 7–8

Thoughts about Life

7^*A good reputation is better than expensive perfume; and the day you die is better than the day you are born.

²It is better to go to a home where there is mourning than to one where there is a party, because the living should always remind themselves that death is waiting for us all.

³Sorrow is better than laughter; it may sadden your face, but it sharpens your understanding.

⁴Someone who is always thinking about happiness is a fool. A wise person thinks about death.

⁵It is better to have wise people reprimand you than to have stupid people sing your praises.

⁶When a fool laughs, it is like thorns crackling in a fire. It doesn’t mean a thing. ⁷You may be wise, but if you cheat someone, you are acting like a fool. If you take a bribe, you ruin your character.

⁸The end of anything is better than its beginning.

Patience is better than pride.

^9*Keep your temper under control; it is foolish to harbour a grudge.

¹⁰Never ask, “Oh, why were things so much better in the old days?” It’s not an intelligent question.

¹¹Everyone who lives ought to be wise; it is as good as receiving an inheritance ¹²and will give you as much security as money can. Wisdom keeps you safe—this is the advantage of knowledge.

¹³Think about what God has done. How can anyone straighten out what God has made crooked? ¹⁴When things are going well for you, be glad, and when trouble comes, just remember: God sends both happiness and trouble; you never know what is going to happen next.^g

¹⁵My life has been useless, but in it I have seen everything. Some good people may die while others live on, even though they are evil. ¹⁶So don’t be too good or too wise—why kill yourself? ¹⁷But don’t be too wicked or too foolish, either—why die before you have to? ¹⁸Avoid both extremes. If you have reverence for God, you will be successful anyway.

¹⁹Wisdom does more for a person than ten rulers can do for a city.

²⁰There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.

²¹Don’t pay attention to everything people say—you may hear your servant insulting you, ²²and you know yourself that you have insulted other people many times.

²³I used my wisdom to test all of this. I was determined to be wise, but it was beyond me. ²⁴How can anyone discover what life means? It is too deep for us, too hard to understand. ²⁵But I devoted myself to knowledge and study; I was determined to find wisdom and the answers to my questions, and to learn how wicked and foolish stupidity is.

²⁶I found something more bitter than death—the woman who is like a trap. The love she offers you will catch you like a net; and her arms round you will hold you like a chain. A man who pleases God can get away, but she will catch the sinner. ²⁷Yes, said the Philosopher, I found this out little by little while I was looking for answers. ²⁸I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman. ²⁹This is all that I have learnt: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.

8Only the wise know what things really mean. Wisdom makes them smile and makes their frowns disappear.

Obey the King

²Do what the king says,^h and don’t make any rash promises to God. ³The king can do anything he likes, so depart from his presence; don’t stay in such a dangerous place. ⁴The king acts with authority, and no one can challenge what he does. ⁵As long as you obey his commands, you are safe, and a wise person knows how and when to do it. ⁶There is a right time and a right way to do everything, but we know so little! ⁷None of us knows what is going to happen, and there is no one to tell us. ⁸No one can keep from dying or put off the day of death. That is a battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out.

The Wicked and the Righteous

⁹I saw all this when I thought about the things that are done in this world, a world where some people have power and others have to suffer under them. ¹⁰Yes, I have seen the wicked buried and in their graves, but on the way back from the cemetery people praise them in the very city where they did their evil. It is useless.ⁱ

¹¹Why do people commit crimes so readily? Because crime is not punished quickly enough. ¹²A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live. Oh yes, I know what they say: “If you obey God, everything will be all right, ¹³but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God.” ¹⁴But this is nonsense. Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless.

¹⁵So I am convinced that we should enjoy ourselves, because the only pleasure we have in this life is eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves. We can at least do this as we labour during the life that God has given us in this world.

¹⁶Whenever I tried to become wise and learn what goes on in the world, I realized that you could stay awake night and day ¹⁷and never be able to understand what God is doing. However hard you try, you will never find out. The wise may claim to know, but they don’t.