Ecclesiastes 7:23–25

²²Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

²⁰Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?

⁵For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

¹BUT king Solomon loved many strange women, together with the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites;

²Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go in to them, neither shall they come in unto you: for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods: Solomon clave unto these in love.

³And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart.

⁴For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father.

⁵For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Zidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites.

⁶And Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord, and went not fully after the Lord, as did David his father.

⁷Then did Solomon build an high place for Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, in the hill that is before Jerusalem, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon.

⁸And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods.

¹¹And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;

¹²Behold, I have done according to thy words: lo, I have given thee a wise and an understanding heart; so that there was none like thee before thee, neither after thee shall any arise like unto thee.

³³O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

¹⁶Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

⁸¶ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

⁹For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

²⁸And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.

⁶Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.

⁷Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?

⁸It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know?

¹²But where shall wisdom be found? and where is the place of understanding?

¹³Man knoweth not the price thereof; neither is it found in the land of the living.

¹⁴The depth saith, It is not in me: and the sea saith, It is not with me.

¹⁵It cannot be gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed for the price thereof.

¹⁶It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, or the sapphire.

¹⁷The gold and the crystal cannot equal it: and the exchange of it shall not be for jewels of fine gold.

¹⁸No mention shall be made of coral, or of pearls: for the price of wisdom is above rubies.

¹⁹The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equal it, neither shall it be valued with pure gold.

²⁰Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding?

²¹Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air.

²²Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.

²³God understandeth the way thereof, and he knoweth the place thereof.

⁶Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O Lord, thou preservest man and beast.

¹¹¶ For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off.

¹²It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

¹³Neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go over the sea for us, and bring it unto us, that we may hear it, and do it?

¹⁴But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, that thou mayest do it.

¹³The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness: and the end of his talk is mischievous madness.

¹³Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.

³And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

⁴For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

⁵And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

⁶And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

⁷And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

⁸(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

⁹The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

³Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

⁴And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

⁵For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

⁶Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

⁷But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

⁸But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

⁹The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

¹²And she answered him, Nay, my brother, do not force me; for no such thing ought to be done in Israel: do not thou this folly.

¹³And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.

¹⁴I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.

¹⁵That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

¹⁶I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

¹⁷And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.

¹I SAID in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure: and, behold, this also is vanity.

²I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it?

³I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.

¹²¶ And I turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly: for what can the man do that cometh after the king? even that which hath been already done.

¹⁵Then said I in my heart, As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity.

²⁰Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.

¹⁶¶ And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

¹⁷I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

²⁷Behold, this have I found, saith the preacher, counting one by one, to find out the account:

¹FOR all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.

²All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.

³This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

⁷And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob’s daughter; which thing ought not to be done.

¹RIGHTEOUS art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?

²Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.

¹²Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly.

¹¹As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.