| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | English Standard Version |
| 1[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 1A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth. |
| 2[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 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 lay it to heart. |
| 3[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 3Sorrow is better than laughter, for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. |
| 4[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 4The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. |
| 5[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 5It is better for a man to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools. |
| 6[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 6For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fools; this also is vanity. |
| 7[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 7Surely oppression drives the wise into madness, and a bribe corrupts the heart. |
| 8[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 8Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. |
| 9[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 9Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. |
| 10[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 10Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. |
| 11[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 11Wisdom is good with an inheritance, an advantage to those who see the sun. |
| 12[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 12For the protection of wisdom is like the protection of money, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it. |
| 13[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 13Consider the work of God: who can make straight what he has made crooked? |
| 14[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 14In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. |
| 15[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 15In my vain life I have seen everything. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evildoing. |
| 16[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 16Be not overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself? |
| 17[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 17Be not overly wicked, neither be a fool. Why should you die before your time? |
| 18[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 18It is good that you should take hold of this, and from that withhold not your hand, for the one who fears God shall come out from both of them. |
| 19[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 19Wisdom gives strength to the wise man more than ten rulers who are in a city. |
| 20[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 20Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins. |
| 21[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 21Do not take to heart all the things that people say, lest you hear your servant cursing you. |
| 22[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 22Your heart knows that many times you yourself have cursed others. |
| 23[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 23All this I have tested by wisdom. I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me. |
| 24[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 24That which has been is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out? |
| 25[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 25I 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. |
| 26[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 26And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and whose hands are fetters. He who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her. |
| 27[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 27Behold, this is what I found, says the Preacher, while adding one thing to another to find the scheme of things— |
| 28[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 28which my soul has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. |
| 29[an error occurred while processing this directive] | 29See, this alone I found, that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes. |
| [an error occurred while processing this directive] | ESV Text Edition: 2016. The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®) copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. The ESV® text has been reproduced in cooperation with and by permission of Good News Publishers. Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited. All rights reserved. |
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