The Contrast of Wisdom and Folly

¹hA good name is better than precious ointment,

and ithe day of death than the day of birth.

²It is better to go to the house of mourning

than to go to the house of feasting,

for this is the end of all mankind,

and the living will jlay it to heart.

³Sorrow is better than laughter,

kfor by sadness of face the heart is made glad.

⁴The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

⁵It is lbetter for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise

than to hear the song of fools.

⁶mFor as the crackling of nthorns under a pot,

so is the laughter of the fools;

this also is vanity.1

⁷Surely ooppression drives the wise into madness,

and pa bribe corrupts the heart.

⁸Better is the end of a thing than its beginning,

and qthe patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

⁹rBe not quick in your spirit to become angry,

sfor anger lodges in the heart2 of fools.

¹⁰Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?”

For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

¹¹Wisdom is good with an inheritance,

an advantage to those who tsee the sun.

¹²For the protection of wisdom is like uthe protection of money,

and the advantage of knowledge is that vwisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

¹³Consider wthe work of God:

xwho can make straight what he has made crooked?

¹⁴yIn the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, zso that man may not find out anything that will be after him.

¹⁵In my avain3 life I have seen everything. There is ba righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who cprolongs his life in his evildoing. ¹⁶Be not overly righteous, and do not dmake yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? ¹⁷Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. eWhy should you die before your time? ¹⁸It is good that you should take hold of fthis, and from gthat hwithhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them.

¹⁹iWisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city.

²⁰Surely jthere is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.

²¹Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear kyour servant cursing you. ²²Your heart knows that lmany times you yourself have cursed others.

²³All this I have tested by wisdom. mI said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. ²⁴That which has been is far off, and ndeep, very deep; owho can find it out?

²⁵pI turned my heart to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the foolishness that is madness. ²⁶And I find something more qbitter than death: rthe woman whose heart is ssnares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but tthe sinner is taken by her. ²⁷Behold, this is what I found, says uthe Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— ²⁸which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. vOne man among a thousand I found, but wa woman among all these I have not found. ²⁹See, this alone I found, that xGod made man upright, but ythey have sought out many schemes.