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23 All this I have put to the test of wisdom:

I said, “I am determined to be wise,”
    but such wisdom was beyond my reach.
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.

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Footnotes

  1. 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.