Douay Rheims Original ↷
Ecclesiastes 7 📜 📕 ↷
Value of Wisdom
1 WHAT needeth a man to seek things greater than himself, whereas he is ignorant, what is profitable for him in his life, in the number of the days of his peregrination, and the time that passeth as a shadow? Or who can tell him what shall be after him under the sun?📜💬📚
2 Better is a good name than precious ointments: and the day of death, than the day of nativity.📜💬📚
3 It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of banqueting, for in that the end of all men is signified, and he that liveth thinketh what shall be.📜💬📚
4 Anger is better than laughter: because by sadness of the countenance, the mind of the offender is corrected.📜💬📚
5 The heart of wisemen where sadness is, and the heart of fools where mirth.📜💬📚
6 It is better to be rebuked of a wiseman, than to be deceived with the flattery of fools.📜💬📚
7 Because as the sound of thorns burning under a pot, so the laughter of a fool: but this also is vanity.📜💬📚
8 Oppression troubleth the wise, and shall destroy the strength of his heart.📜💬📚
9 Better is the end of a speech, than the beginning. Better is the patient man than the arrogant.📜💬📚
10 Be not quickly angry, because anger resteth in the bosom of a fool.📜💬📚
11 Say not: What is the cause thinkest thou that the former times were better than they are now? For this manner of question is foolish.📜💬📚
12 Wisdom with riches is more profitable, and doth more profit them that see the sun.📜💬📚
13 For as wisdom protecteth, so money protecteth. But learning and wisdom have this much more, that they give life to their owner.📜💬📚
14 Consider the works of God, that no man can correct whom he hath despised.📜💬📚
Limits of Human Wisdom
15 In the good day enjoy good things, and beware before of the evil day. For as this, so that also hath God made, that man find not against him just complaints.📜💬📚
16 These things also I saw in the days of my vanity: The just man perisheth in his justice, and the impious liveth a long time in his malice.📜💬📚
17 Be not just too much: neither be more wise than is necessary, lest thou become more dull.📜💬📚
18 Do not impiously much: and be not foolish, lest thou die not in thy time.📜💬📚
19 It is good that thou hold up the just, yea and from him withdraw not thy hand: because he that feareth God, neglecteth nothing.📜💬📚
20 Wisdom hath strengthened the wise above ten Princes of the city.📜💬📚
21 For there is no just man in the earth, that doth good, and sinneth not.📜💬📚
22 But to all words also that are spoken, do not apply thy heart: lest perhaps thou hear thy servant cursing thee.📜💬📚
23 For thy conscience knoweth, that thou also hast cursed others.📜💬📚
24 I have proved all things in wisdom. I have said: I will become wise, & it departed farther from me📜💬📚
25 much more than it was: and a deep profundity, who shall find it?📜💬📚
26 I have viewed all things with my mind, that I might know, and consider, and might seek wisdom and reason: and that I might know the impiety of the fool, and the error of the imprudent:📜💬📚
27 and I have found that a woman is more bitter than death, who is the snare of hunters, and her heart a net, her hands are bands. He that pleaseth God, will avoid her: but he that is a sinner, will be caught of her.📜💬📚
28 Lo this have I found, said Ecclesiastes, one thing and an other, that I might find reason,📜💬📚
29 which yet my soul seeketh, and I have not found it. A man of a thousand I have found one, a woman of all I have not found.📜💬📚
30 Only this I have found, that God made man right, and he hath entangled himself with infinite questions. Who is such a one as the wise? And who hath known the resolution of the word.📜💬📚
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