Ecclesiastes 7:21-29 ▼

21 Also, do not take seriously everything that is said, so that you will not hear your servant cursing you,

22 for you also know that you too have cursed others many times.

23 I have tested all this with wisdom. I said, “I will be wise [independently of God],” but true wisdom was far from me.

24 Whatever has been is far off, deeply remote and exceedingly mysterious. Who can discover it [for it is beyond the grasp of man]?

25 I turned around and directed my heart to know, to investigate and to seek [skillful and godly] wisdom and the reason for things, and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness [leading to stupidity and recklessness].

26 And I discovered that [of all irrational sins none has been so destructive in beguiling one away from God as immoral women for] more bitter than death is the woman whose heart is [composed of] snares and nets, and whose hands are chains. Whoever pleases God will escape from her, but the sinner will be taken captive by her [evil].

27 “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “while adding one thing to another to find an explanation,

28 which I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand [who pleases God], but I have not found [such] a woman among all these [a thousand in my harem].

29 Behold, I have found only this [as a reason]: God made man upright and uncorrupted, but they [both men and women] have sought out many devices [for evil].”