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Ecclesiastes 7:24-26
New Catholic Bible
Ecclesiastes 7:24-26
New Catholic Bible
24 This state of wisdom is far off and buried very deep.
Who can discover it?
Man and Woman[a]
25 I then turned my thoughts
in the direction of knowledge.
My mind sought to search out and seek wisdom
and the reason why things are as they are,
only to realize that it is foolish to be wicked
and madness to act like a fool.
26 I find more bitter than death
the woman who is a snare:[b]
her heart is a net
and her arms are chains.
One who pleases God escapes her clutches,
but the sinner is captured by her.
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 7:25 The wisdom of the time easily set forth its warnings about the seductress in the belief that every woman is by nature a trap for men. Qoheleth recalls these clichés, but one has the impression that he regards them as caricatures; for he knows that man is more complicated, or, better, that he makes things more complicated.
- Ecclesiastes 7:26 The woman who is a snare: this is the seductress about whom men are warned (see Prov 2:16-19; 5:1-14; 6:24-29; 7:1-27), but elsewhere Scripture exalts the virtues of man’s lifetime companion (see Eccl 9:9; Prov 5:15-23; 31:10-31).
