Ecclesiastes 7:23-29

Christian Standard Bible

What the Teacher Found

²³ I have tested all this by wisdom. I resolved, “I will be wise,” but it was beyond me. ²⁴ What exists is beyond reach and very deep.^(A) Who can discover it? ²⁵ I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom^(B) and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness. ²⁶ And I find more bitter than death^(C) the woman who is a trap:^(D) her heart a net and her hands chains. The one who pleases God will escape her, but the sinner will be captured by her. ²⁷ “Look,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find out the explanation, ²⁸ which my soul continually searches for but does not find: I found one person in a thousand, but none of those was a woman.^{(E) 29} Only see this: I have discovered that God made people upright,^(F) but they pursued many schemes.”