1 A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day one is born.
2 It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of banqueting, for that is the end of all mankind, and the living will take it to heart.
3 Grief is better than laughter, for a sad face is good for the heart.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
5 Better to heed a wise man's rebuke than to listen to the singing of fools.
6 For as the crackle of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is vanity.
7 Surely extortion turns a wise man into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
8 Better the end of a thing than its beginning; better a patient spirit than a proud spirit.
9 Do not be quick in spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.
10 Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wisdom that prompts you to ask this.
11 Wisdom is good along with an inheritance, and a benefit to those who see the sun.
12 For wisdom gives protection just as money gives protection; but the advantage of knowledge is this: wisdom preserves the life of the one who has it.
13 Look at what God has done: who can straighten what he has bent?
14 In the day of prosperity be glad, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man cannot find out anything that will come after him.
15 In my days of vanity I have seen it all: a righteous man perishing in his righteousness, and a wicked man living long in his wickedness.
16 Do not be overly righteous, and do not be excessively wise; why should you ruin yourself?
17 Do not be overly wicked, and do not be a fool; why should you die before your time?
18 It is good to hold on to the one and not let your hand go from the other; for one who fears God will come through them both.
19 Wisdom makes the wise man more powerful than ten rulers in a city.
20 Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins.
21 Do not take to heart every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you.
22 For your own heart knows that you too have often cursed others.
23 All this I put to the test by wisdom. I said, "I will become wise," but it was beyond me.
24 Whatever exists is far off and deep, exceedingly deep; who can discover it?
25 I turned my heart to know, to explore and to seek out wisdom and the sum of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the madness of foolishness.
26 And I find something more bitter than death: the woman whose heart is traps and snares, and whose hands are chains. The one who pleases God will escape from her, but the sinner will be captured by her.
27 "See, this is what I have found," says the Preacher, "adding one thing to another to discover the sum,
28 which my soul still searches for but has not found: one man in a thousand I have found, but a woman among all these I have not found.
29 This alone I have found: God made man upright, but they have searched out many schemes."