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UST by section ECC 7:1

⌂ ← ECC 7:1–7:29 → ║ ═ ©

Ecclesiastes 7

7 An honorable reputation is actually more advantageous to people

than expensive perfume.

Similarly, a person's death is actually a more advantageous moment for people

than the moment when that person's mother gave birth to him.

2 Attending a funeral is actually more advantageous

than attending a celebratory feast.

This is true because everyone will inevitably die.

People should take time to ponder and accept this reality while they are alive.

3 Feeling grief and mourning is actually more advantageous for people

than merely laughing.

This is true because grieving painful experiences may help one

better understand what life is like and accept it.

4 Wise people choose to participate in public ceremonies of mourning

so that they may ponder the fact that they also will inevitably die.

Conversely, foolish people ignore this reality

by only attending celebrations and festive parties.

5 Listening to the criticism of someone who lives wisely is really more advantageous

than listening to the celebratory song of foolish people.

6 This is true because the noisy laughter of foolish people

is as loud and useless as trying to heat food

over an outdoor fire that someone only fuels with thorns.

Although the thorns may loudly pop and sizzle,

they will only produce a little heat

and will never actually heat the food.

In the same way, the loud and happy noise of foolish people

is as fleeting and insubstantial as the fading mist of my breath.

7 Now, the power to abuse someone less powerful than themselves,

can turn even wise people into crazed and foolish people.

In the same way, officials who accept dishonest payment intended to influence their behavior

become unable to do what is right.

8 It is really more beneficial for people for something to conclude

than for it merely to begin.

Similarly, being patient is really more advantageous

than being proud.

9 You should not allow yourself to lose your temper quickly,

because being irascible is characteristic of foolish people.

10 Neither should you complain and wonder why it seems that life in the past was preferable to the present.

Surely, only foolish nostalgia, not wise reflection, causes this kind of comment.

11 Thinking and living wisely is both valuable and useful,

just like receiving an endowment of property or money from a relative who has died.

As such, being wise can provide anyone alive with significant benefits.

12 Their ability to think and act wisely can provide protection for wise people,

just like money can sometimes provide protection for wealthy people.

Nonetheless, knowing how to think and live well has one more benefit than being wealthy:

This kind of wise thinking often prevents people

from doing foolish things that would cause premature death or other undesirable outcomes.

13 Think carefully about what God has done. Certainly, no human being can change those aspects of their lives that they dislike, since God has determined that their lives should be that way.

14 When your life is going well for you, enjoy it!

But when your life is not going the way that you would prefer, stop to consider this:

God is the one who created life and causes

both good things and less desirable things to happen in your life.

God does this so that we do not start thinking

that we can control what happens to us in our lives, as God does.

15 In my lifetime, as fleeting as the fading mist of my breath, I have witnessed two opposite scenarios.

On the one hand, many good people die too young, even though they live justly.

On the other hand, many bad people live long and prosperous lives, even though they live unjustly and wickedly.

16 So, you should not think that you can be so virtuous

that your moral virtue obligates God to give you a long and prosperous life.

Neither should you think that you can become so wise and live so well

that you can avoid anything painful in life.

If you were to think this way, you would only be astonished and devastated when undesirable things happen in your life.

17 You should not live so excessively sinfully

that God becomes angry at you,

and neither should you allow yourself to live foolishly.

If you were to live this way, God would not allow you to live out the rest of your life, but would justly kill you.

18 Your life will go best if you are diligent in remembering to live according to

both parts of my advice to you.

The kind of individual who fearfully recognizes that God is powerfully governing this world and submits to him will demonstrate this by living as both parts of my advice have instructed him.

19 The ability to think and live wisely can reliably guide a wise individual safely through his life. It can do this more effectively than even the ten most powerful officials who govern a city! 20 Humanity needs the protection that comes from thinking and living wisely, because no one who has ever lived has been entirely righteous. No human being has ever done only what is good and right without ever doing anything wrong.
21 Relatedly, you should not pay attention to everything that people say. If you were to do that, you might inadvertently hear people whom you trust publicly demean you. 22 After all, you yourself know very well that you have also publicly demeaned people who trusted you.

23 I used my ability to think and live wisely to analyze all of these realities of life. I stoutly resolved that I would become wise enough to understand all the realities that I have witnessed in my life, about which I have written. Frustratingly, I could not do it. 24 All the present realities that I observed in my life were beyond my comprehension, as if they were too far away for me to see clearly. They were also too complex and incomprehensible for me to understand, as if they were too deep for me to get to the bottom of them. I do not believe that any human being can truly understand all of this. 25 Nevertheless, I shifted my full attention to a larger task. I wanted to study humanity's ability to think and live wisely so exhaustively and scrupulously that I could comprehend the way that God governs everything and the reason that he governs the way he does. I also wanted to study humanity’s propensity to live so foolishly that they openly disobey God, and to live so irrationally that they become fools. 26 This is what I learned:

Foolish thinking is as distressingly painful as one's death.

However, foolishness is even more so!

It is like a seductive and dangerous woman

who ceaselessly attempts to ensnare young men.

Her deepest desire is to trap and deceive people,

as if her very heart were a cage,

and her very hands were iron chains.

Foolish thinking is exactly like such a woman.

Although foolish thinking like that will capture sinful people,

people who live well in God's presence will be able to avoid living that foolishly.

27 So, understand—this is what I, the Teacher, have learned from my investigations:

I carefully considered one thing after another until I could comprehend the way that God governs everything and the reason that he governs the way he does.

28 Despite all my failures, I continued searching,

but I could not find what I was desperate to discover.

I was looking to become wise,

as if the ability to think and live wisely as a single, elusive woman living among a thousand men.

I found all the men, but I never found that woman.

29 So, consider this:

After everything, I have learned only that when God created humanity,

God made them to live justly and equitably.

Despite this, humans have tried to discover innumerable ways

to understand life and attempt to control what happens to them.

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