Ecclesiastes 7:15-29

Christian Standard Bible

Avoiding Extremes

¹⁵ In my futile life^[a] I have seen everything:^(A) someone righteous perishes in spite of his righteousness,^(B) and someone wicked lives long in spite of his evil.^{(C) 16} Don’t be excessively righteous, and don’t be overly wise.^(D) Why should you destroy yourself? ¹⁷ Don’t be excessively wicked, and don’t be foolish. Why should you die before your time?^{(E) 18} It is good that you grasp the one and do not let the other slip from your hand. For the one who fears God will end up with both of them.

²¹ Don’t pay attention^[b] to everything people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you,^{(H) 22} for in your heart you know that many times you yourself have cursed others.

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.^(I) Who can discover it? ²⁵ I turned my thoughts to know, explore, and examine wisdom^(J) and an explanation for things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity and folly is madness. ²⁶ And I find more bitter than death^(K) the woman who is a trap:^(L) 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.^{(M) 29} Only see this: I have discovered that God made people upright,^(N) but they pursued many schemes.”