Ecclesiastes 7:15-29

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

The Riddles of Life

¹⁵ In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.^{(A) 16} Do not be too righteous, and do not act too wise; why should you destroy yourself?^{(B) 17} Do not be too wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time? ¹⁸ It is good that you should take hold of the one without letting go of the other, for the one who fears God shall succeed with both.

¹⁹ Wisdom gives strength to the wise more than ten rulers who are in a city.^(C)

²⁰ Surely there is no one on earth so righteous as to do good without ever sinning.^(D)

²¹ Do not give heed to everything that people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you; ²² your heart knows that many times you have yourself cursed others.

²³ All this I have tested by wisdom; I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me.^{(E) 24} That which is, is far off, and deep, very deep; who can find it out?^{(F) 25} I turned my mind to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the sum of things and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness.^{(G) 26} I found more bitter than death the woman who is a trap, whose heart is nets, whose hands are fetters; one who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is taken by her.^{(H) 27} See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, adding one thing to another to find the sum,^{(I) 28} which my mind has sought repeatedly, but I have not found. One man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I have not found. ²⁹ See, this alone I found, that God made human beings straightforward, but they have devised many schemes.^(J)