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7:1  A good name is better than good ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.
7:2  It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, For that is the end of every mortal, and the living should take it to heart.
7:3  Sorrow is better than laughter; when the face is sad, the heart grows wise.
7:4  The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of merriment.
7:5  It is better to listen to the rebuke of the wise than to listen to the song of fools;
7:6  For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the fool’s laughter. This also is vanity.
7:7  Extortion can make a fool out of the wise, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
7:8  Better is the end of a thing than its beginning; better is a patient spirit than a lofty one.
7:9  Do not let anger upset your spirit, for anger lodges in the bosom of a fool.
7:10  Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not out of wisdom that you ask about this.
7:11  Wisdom is as good as an inheritance and profitable to those who see the sun.
7:12  For the protection of wisdom is as the protection of money; and knowledge is profitable because wisdom gives life to those who possess it.
7:13  Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what God has made crooked?
7:14  On a good day enjoy good things, and on an evil day consider: Both the one and the other God has made, so that no one may find the least fault with him.
7:15  I have seen all manner of things in my vain days: the just perishing in their justice, and the wicked living long in their wickedness.
7:16  “Be not just to excess, and be not overwise. Why work your own ruin?
7:17  Be not wicked to excess, and be not foolish. Why should you die before your time?”
7:18  It is good to hold to this rule, and not to let that one go; but the one who fears God will succeed with both.
7:19  Wisdom is a better defense for the wise than ten princes in the city,
7:20  yet there is no one on earth so just as to do good and never sin.
7:21  Do not give your heart to every word that is spoken; you may hear your servant cursing you,
7:22  for your heart knows that you have many times cursed others.
7:23  All these things I probed in wisdom. I said, “I will acquire wisdom”; but it was far beyond me.
7:24  What exists is far-reaching; it is deep, very deep: Who can find it out?
7:25  I turned my heart toward knowledge; I sought and pursued wisdom and its design, and I recognized that wickedness is foolishness and folly is madness.
7:26  More bitter than death I find the woman who is a hunter’s trap, whose heart is a snare, whose hands are prison bonds. The one who pleases God will be delivered from her, but the one who displeases will be entrapped by her.
7:27  See, this have I found, says Qoheleth, adding one to one to find the sum.
7:28  What my soul still seeks and has yet to find is this: “One man out of a thousand have I found, but a woman among them all I have not found.”
7:29  But this alone I have found: God made humankind honest, but they have pursued many designs.