Ecclesiastes 7:23-29
New American Standard Bible
23 I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” (A)but wisdom was far from me. 24 What has been is remote and (B)very [a]mysterious. (C)Who can discover it? 25 I [b](D)directed my [c]mind to know and to investigate, and to seek wisdom and an explanation, and to know the evil of foolishness and the foolishness of insanity. 26 And I discovered as more (E)bitter than death the woman whose heart is (F)snares and nets, whose hands are chains. (G)One who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but (H)the sinner will be captured by her.
27 “Behold, I have discovered this,” says the Preacher, “by adding one thing to another to find an explanation, 28 which [d]I am still seeking but have not found. I have found one man among a thousand, but I have not found a (I)woman among all these. 29 Behold, I have found only this, that (J)God made people upright, but they have sought out many schemes.”
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Ecclesiastes 7:24 Lit deep
- Ecclesiastes 7:25 Lit turned about
- Ecclesiastes 7:25 Lit heart
- Ecclesiastes 7:28 Lit my soul still seeks
New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved.
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