Ecclesiastes 7 in plain modern English. New Ground English Translation.

A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.

It's better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting, because death is where everyone ends up — and the living should take that to heart.

Grief is better than laughter, because when the face is heavy, the heart grows wiser.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

It's better to listen to a wise person's correction than to listen to the song of fools.

Because the laughter of fools is like thorns crackling under a pot — this too is vapor.

Because extortion turns a wise person into a fool, and a bribe corrupts the heart.

The end of something is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride.

Don't be quick to get angry in your spirit, because anger settles in the lap of fools.

Don't say, "Why were the old days better than these?" — because it's not wisdom that makes you ask that.

Wisdom is as good as an inheritance — an advantage for anyone who sees the sun.

For wisdom is a shelter, just as money is a shelter — but the advantage of knowledge is this: wisdom keeps its owner alive.

Consider what God has done: who can straighten what he has made crooked?

On a good day, enjoy it. On a bad day, consider this: God made the one alongside the other, so that no one can figure out what comes next.

In my vapor-like life I've seen it all: a just person destroyed despite their justice, and a corrupt person living long despite their corruption.

Don't be overly just, and don't make yourself excessively wise — why destroy yourself?

Don't be excessively corrupt, and don't be a fool — why die before your time?

It's good to hold onto one without letting go of the other. The person who respects God will navigate both.

Wisdom gives a wise person more strength than ten rulers in a city.

There is certainly no one on earth so just that they always do good and never fail.

Also, don't pay attention to everything people say — otherwise you might hear your own servant cursing you.

Because your own heart knows that you too have cursed others many times.

I tested all of this with wisdom. I said, "I will be wise" — but it was beyond my reach.

What exists is far off and deeply deep — who can find it?

I turned my heart to know, to explore, and to seek out wisdom and the way things work — and to understand that corruption is foolishness, and foolishness is madness.

And I find something more bitter than death: the woman who is a trap — her heart is a net, her hands are chains. The one who pleases God escapes her, but the one who fails gets caught.

"Look," says Qoheleth, "this is what I found, adding one thing to another to find the way things work — "

"what I keep searching for but haven't found: one man in a thousand I found, but a woman among all of them I did not find."

Only this have I found: God made humanity upright, but they have chased after endless schemes.