Ecclesiastes - The Old Testament

¹ Better a good name than costly oil, the day of death than the day of birth.

² Better go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting; for to this end everyone comes, let the living take this to heart.

³ Better sadness than laughter: a joyful heart may be concealed behind sad looks.

⁴ The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, the heart of fools in the house of gaiety.

⁵ Better attend to the reprimand of the wise than listen to a song sung by a fool.

⁶ For like the crackling of thorns under the cauldron is the laughter of fools: and that too is futile.

⁷ But being oppressed drives a sage mad, and a present corrupts the heart.

⁸ Better the end of a matter than its beginning, better patience than ambition.

⁹ Do not be too easily exasperated, for exasperation dwells in the heart of fools.

¹⁰ Do not ask why the past was better than the present, for this is not a question prompted by wisdom.

¹¹ Wisdom is as good as a legacy, profitable to those who enjoy the light of the sun.

¹² For as money protects, so does wisdom, and the advantage of knowledge is this: that wisdom bestows life on those who possess her.

¹³ Consider God's creation: who, for instance, can straighten what God has bent?

¹⁴ When things are going well, enjoy yourself, and when they are going badly, consider this: God has designed the one no less than the other so that we should take nothing for granted.

¹⁵ In my futile life, I have seen everything: the upright person perishing in uprightness and the wicked person surviving in wickedness.

¹⁶ Do not be upright to excess and do not make yourself unduly wise: why should you destroy yourself?

¹⁷ Do not be wicked to excess, and do not be a fool: why die before your time?

¹⁸ It is wise to hold on to one and not let go of the other, since the godfearing will find both.

¹⁹ Wisdom makes the wise stronger than a dozen governors in a city.

²⁰ No one on earth is sufficiently upright to do good without ever sinning.

²¹ Again, do not listen to all that people say, then you will not hear your servant abusing you.

²² For often, as you very well know, you have abused others.

²³ Thanks to wisdom, I have found all this to be true; I resolved to be wise, but this was beyond my reach!

²⁴ The past is out of reach, buried deep -- who can discover it?

²⁵ But I have reached the point where, having learnt, explored and investigated wisdom and reflection, I recognise evil as being a form of madness, and folly as something stupid.

²⁶ And I find woman more bitter than Death, she is a snare, her heart is a net, and her arms are chains. The man who is pleasing to God eludes her, but the sinner is captured by her.

²⁷ This is what I think, says Qoheleth, having examined one thing after another to draw some conclusion,

²⁸ which I am still looking for, although unsuccessfully: one man in a thousand, I may find, but a woman better than other women-never.

²⁹ This alone is my conclusion: God has created man straightforward, and human artifices are human inventions.