Ecclesiastes 7

1A good name is worth more than fine perfume, and the day of death more than the day of birth. 2It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, because death is the end of everyone, and the living will take it to heart. 3Grief is better than laughter, for a sad face can be good for the heart. 4The hearts of the wise are in the house of mourning, but the hearts of fools are in the house of pleasure. 5It is better to listen to a wise person’s rebuke than to listen to the song of fools. 6For like thorns crackling under a pot is the laughter of a fool. This too is a breath. 7Oppression can drive a wise person mad, and a bribe corrupts the heart. 8The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. 9Do not let your spirit be quick to anger, for anger makes its home in the heart of fools. 10Do not say, “How is it that earlier days were better than these?” It is not wisdom that prompts that question. 11Wisdom is good along with an inheritance, and an advantage to those who see the sun. 12For wisdom shelters as money shelters, but this is the gain of knowledge: wisdom keeps alive those who have it. 13Consider what God has done: who can straighten what he has made crooked? 14When times are good, enjoy the good, and when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other, so that no one can find out anything about what is to come. 15In my brief life, which is only a breath, I have seen it all: there are righteous people who perish in spite of their righteousness, and there are wicked people who live long in spite of their evil. 16Do not be too righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why destroy yourself? 17Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool. Why die before your time? 18It is good to hold on to the one and not to let go of the other, for whoever fears God will come through with both. 19Wisdom makes a wise person stronger than ten rulers in a city. 20Indeed, there is no one on earth so righteous that they always do good and never sin. 21Also, do not take to heart everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you. 22For you know in your heart that you yourself have often cursed others. 23All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but wisdom was far from me. 24What exists is far off and very deep. Who can find it out? 25I turned my mind to understand, to explore, and to search out wisdom and the reason of things, and to understand that wickedness is folly and foolishness is madness. 26I find something more bitter than death: the woman who is a trap, whose heart is a net and whose hands are chains. Whoever pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be caught by her. 27Look, this is what I have found, says the Teacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum, 28which I have kept searching for but have not found. One man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found. 29This alone I have found: God made human beings upright, but they have gone looking for many schemes.