Wisdom is better than wealth

¹A good name is better than fine oil,

and the day of death better than the birthday.

²It is better to go to a house in mourning

than to a house party,

because that is everyone’s destiny;

and the living should take it to heart.

³Aggravation is better than merriment

because a sad face may lead to a glad heart.

⁴The wise heart is in the house that mourns,

but the foolish heart is in the house that rejoices.

⁵It is better to obey the reprimand of the wise

than to listen to the song of fools,

⁶because the fool’s merriment

is like nettles crackling under a kettle.

⁷Oppression turns the wise into fools;

a bribe corrupts the heart.

⁸The end of something is better than its beginning.

Patience is better than arrogance.

⁹Don’t be too quick to get angry

because anger lives in the fool’s heart.

¹⁰Don’t ask, “How is it that the former days were better than these?”

because it isn’t wise to ask this.

¹¹Wisdom is as good as an inheritance—[#7.11 Or Wisdom is good with]

an advantage for those who see the sun.

¹²Wisdom’s protection is like the protection of money;

the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the lives of its possessors.

Good times and bad

¹³Consider God’s work! Who can straighten what God has made crooked?

¹⁴When times are good, enjoy the good; when times are bad, consider: God has made the former as well as the latter so that people can’t discover anything that will come to be after them.

¹⁵I have seen everything in my pointless lifetime: the righteous person may die in spite of their righteousness; then again, the wicked may live long in spite of their wickedness.

¹⁶Don’t be too righteous or too wise, or you may be dumbfounded.[#7.16 Or destroyed]

¹⁷Don’t be too wicked and don’t be a fool, or you may die before your time.

¹⁸It’s good that you take hold of one of these without letting go of the other because the one who fears God will go forth with both.

¹⁹Wisdom makes a wise person stronger than ten rulers who are in a city.

²⁰Remember: there’s no one on earth so righteous as to do good only and never make a mistake.[#7.20 Or and never sin]

²¹Don’t worry about all the things people say, so you don’t hear your servant cursing you.

²²After all, you know that you’ve often cursed others yourself!

Life is complicated

²³I tested all of this by wisdom. I thought, I will be wise, but it eluded me.

²⁴All that happens is elusive and utterly unfathomable. Who can grasp it?

²⁵I turned my mind to know, to investigate, and to seek wisdom, along with an account of things, to know that wickedness is foolishness and folly is madness.

²⁶I found one woman more bitter than death: she who is a trap, her heart a snare, her hands shackles. Anyone who pleases God escapes her, but a sinner is trapped by her.

²⁷See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, examining one matter after another to account for things.

²⁸But there’s something that I constantly searched for but couldn’t find: I found one man among a thousand, but I couldn’t find a woman among any of these.[#7.28 Heb uncertain]

²⁹See, this alone I found: God made human beings straightforward, but they search for many complications.