LEB ECC Chapter 7

People Generally Do Not Know What is Best for Them

• and the day of death is better than the day of one’s birth.
• 2  than to go to the house of feasting,
• for death is the end of every person,
  • and the living should take it to his heart.
  • 3 is better than laughter, for by sadness of countenance the heart is made good.
  • 4 is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
  • 5 the rebuke of the wise than for a man to listen to the song of fools.
  • 6  so also the laughter of fools.
• This also is vanity!

Wisdom—Although Vulnerable—is Beneficial

• 7 and a bribe corrupts the heart.
• 8 is better than its beginning;[fn]
• 9  for anger lodges in the bosom of fools.
• 10  For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.
• 11 is good with an inheritance;[fn]
• 12 [fn] But knowledge has an advantage—wisdom restores life to its possessor.

Humans Must Accept God’s Will and Make the Best of It

• 13 For who is able to make straight what he made crooked?
• 14  But in the day of adversity, consider!
• For God made one in place of another
  • so that mortals cannot find out what will happen[fn]

The Law of Retribution Does Not Always Work—but It Does Sometimes

• 15 Sometimes a righteous man perishes in spite of his righteousness,
  • and sometimes a wicked man lives a long life in spite of his evil.
• 16 [fn] righteous, and do not act excessively wise, lest you destroy yourself.
• 17  and do not be a fool, lest you die before your time.
• 18 It is good to take hold of the one and also must not let go of the other; for whoever fears God will hold both of them secure.

Wisdom is Valuable, but No One is Completely Righteous

• 19 than ten rulers who are in the city.
• 20  who continually does good and never sins.
• 21  lest you hear your own servant curse you.
• 22  that you also have cursed others many times.

Absolute Wisdom is Unattainable

23 All this I have tested with wisdom. I said, “I will be wise!” but it was beyond my grasp.[fn] 24 Whatever is—it is far beyond comprehension.[fn] Who can discover it?

25 I set my mind to try to seek wisdom and the plan, and to know that wickedness is foolishness and that folly is delusion. 26 I myself found that more bitter than death is the woman who is a trap, whose heart is a snare, and whose hands are bonds. The one who pleases God escapes from her, but the sinner is caught by her. 27 “Look! I found this,” said the Teacher,[fn] “while trying to find how the plan fits together. 28 What my heart sought, I did not find. Although I found one righteous man among one thousand, I did not find one upright woman among all these. 29 Look! This alone I found: God made mankind upright, but they have devised many schemes.”