Ecclesiastes 7:1-28

¹A good name is better than precious ointments; and the day of death is better than the day of birth.

²It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of a feast; for in that house of mourning the end of all men is warned of, and a man living thinketh, what is to coming or to come.

³Ire or wrath is better than laugh-ing; for the soul of a trespasser is amended by the heaviness of his cheer.

⁴The heart of wise men is where sorrow is; and the heart of fools is where folly gladness is.

⁵It is better to be reproved of a wise man, than to be deceived by the flattering of fools;

⁶for as the sound of thorns burning under a pot, so is the laughing of a fool. But also this is vanity.

⁷False challenge troubleth a wise man, and it shall lose the strength of his heart.

⁸Forsooth the end of prayer is better than the beginning. A patient man is better than a proud man.

⁹Be thou not swift to be wroth; for ire resteth in the bosom of a fool.

¹⁰Say thou not, What guessest thou is the cause, that the former times were better than be now? for why such asking is fond or foolish.

¹¹Forsooth wisdom with riches is more profitable, and profiteth more to men seeing the sun.

¹²For as wisdom defendeth, so money defendeth; but learning and wisdom have this moreover, that those give life to them that have them.

¹³Behold thou the works of God, and see that no man may amend him, whom God hath despised.

¹⁴In a good day use thou goods, and before eschew thou an evil day; for God made so this day as that day, that a man find not just complainings against him.

¹⁵Also I saw these things in the days of my nativity; a just or rightwise man perisheth in his rightfulness or rightwiseness, and a wicked man liveth much time in his malice.

¹⁶Do not thou be just or rightwise over much, neither understand thou more than is needful; lest thou be astonied.

¹⁷Do thou not wickedly much, and do not thou be a fool; lest thou die in a time not thine.

¹⁸It is good, that thou sustain a just or rightwise man; but also withdraw thou not thine hand from him; for he that dreadeth God, is not negligent of anything.

¹⁹Wisdom hath strengthened a wise man, over ten princes of a city.

²⁰Forsooth no just or rightwise man there is in the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.

²¹But also give thou not thine heart to all words, that be said; lest peradventure thou hear thy servant cursing thee;

²²for thy conscience knoweth, that also thou hast cursed oft other men.

²³I assayed all things in wisdom; I said, I shall be made wise, and it went away further from me,

²⁴much more than it was; and the depth is low, who shall find it?

²⁵I compassed all things with my soul, to know, and to behold, and seek wisdom, and reason, and to know the wickedness of a fool, and the error of unprudent men.

²⁶And I found a woman bitterer than death, the which is the snare of hunters, and her heart is a net, and her hands be bonds; he that pleaseth God shall escape her, but he that is a sinner, shall be taken of her.

²⁷Lo! I found this, said Ecclesiastes, one and other, that I should find reason,

²⁸which my soul seeketh yet; and I found not. I found one man of a thousand; and I found not a woman of all.