1An honorable name is better than perfumed oil. Better the day of death than the day of birth.
2Better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, for to this end all come, and let the living take this to heart: 3Sorrow is better than laughter, for a sad face brings healing to the soul. 4The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the heart of the fool is in the house of feasting.
5Better to heed the rebuke of a wise than to listen to a fool’s song. 6Like the crackling of thorns under a pot is the fool’s laugh.
7Corruption makes a wise man mad, bribe blinds his heart.
8Better to reach the end than to begin. Better patience than a haughty spirit.
9Don’t be easily dejected, for dejection resides in the womb of fools.
10Do not ask why former times were better than the present. It is not wisdom that prompts such a question.
11Wisdom is as precious as an inheritance; it is a blessing for those on whom the sun shines. 12If wisdom protects you, money will do the same. This is the benefit of acquiring wisdom: it makes its owner live.
13See the work of God. Who can straighten what he has bent? 14Be happy in the day of prosperity and in the day of sorrow reflect: 15God has given both one and the other and many may discover what comes later.
16Do not be over-righteous or excessively wise, lest you harm yourself. 17Do not be too wicked or too stupid, lest you die before your time.
18It is well to hold to one and not to loosen your grasp on the other. The God-fearing man copes with both.
19Wisdom gives strength to the wise more than ten rulers in the city. 20There is no righteous man on earth who always does good and never sins.
21Don’t take seriously all that you hear, lest you hear your servant speak ill of you. 22You know well how many times you have spoken ill of others!
23After having examined all this critically I said, “I will be wise!” 24But how far it is from me! more remote than anything, and deep, very deep. Who could discover it?
25I set myself in all earnestness to know, study and pursue wisdom and reason, so I saw that wickedness is folly, and foolishness, stupidity.
26 ① I find woman more bitter than death. She is a pitfall; her heart is a snare and her arms, chains. He who pleases God will escape from her, but the sinner will be caught.
27See what I discovered – says the Teacher – after considering them one after another, anxious to understand. 28I have been searching but have not yet found; for a man among a thousand I may find, but not a woman among all of them.
29See what I discovered: God made man simple, but they get lost in their many thoughts.
- Ecl 7,26 {N}7,{/}26-29 cannot fail to shock us. It is time to remember that the Bible is both word of God and human word, word of a certain time and a certain culture. Almost all the texts of the Bible are born of an experience lived by men, in a world which, in most cases, did not know woman.
