Ecclesiastes 7:25–8:1

²⁵I ^aturned my heart to know, to explore, and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the wickedness of foolishness and the simpleminded folly of madness.

²⁶And I found more ^abitter than death the woman whose heart is ^bsnares and nets, whose hands are chains. ^cOne who is good before God will escape from her, but ^dthe sinner will be captured by her.

²⁷“See, I have found this,” says the Preacher, “adding one thing to another to find an explanation,

²⁸which my soul still seeks but has not found. I have found one man out of a thousand, but I have not found a ^awoman among all these.

²⁹“See, I have found only this, that ^aGod made men upright, but they have sought out many devices.”

CHAPTER 8

Keep the Command of the King

¹Who is like the wise man and who knows the interpretation of a matter? A man’s wisdom ^aillumines his face and causes his ^bstern face to ¹beam.