Ecclesiastes 7

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

This is the Balanced text at the default settings. The notes, the reasoning behind each verse and the reader settings need JavaScript..disputed-note .fn-pop-more { display: none; }

Better than

¹A good name is worth more than fine perfume, \q and the day of death more than the day of birth. ²It is better to go to a house of mourning \q than to go to a house of feasting, \q because death is the end of everyone, \q and the living will take it to heart. ³Grief is better than laughter, \q for a sad face can be good for the heart. ⁴The hearts of the wise are in the house of mourning, \q but the hearts of fools are in the house of pleasure. ⁵It is better to listen to a wise person’s rebuke \q than to listen to the song of fools. ⁶For like thorns crackling under a pot \q is the laughter of a fool. \q This too is a breath. ⁷Oppression can drive a wise person mad, \q and a bribe corrupts the heart. ⁸The end of a matter is better than its beginning, \q and patience is better than pride. ⁹Do not let your spirit be quick to anger, \q for anger makes its home in the heart of fools. ¹⁰Do not say, “How is it that earlier days were better than these?” \q It is not wisdom that prompts that question. ¹¹Wisdom is good along with an inheritance, \q and an advantage to those who see the sun. ¹²For wisdom shelters as money shelters, \q but this is the gain of knowledge: \q wisdom keeps alive those who have it. ¹³Consider what God has done: \q who can straighten what he has made crooked? ¹⁴When times are good, enjoy the good, \q and when times are bad, consider this: \q God has made the one as well as the other, \q 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.