Catholic Public Domain Version

Ecclesiastes 7:21-30 Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV)

21. But there is no just man on earth, who does good and does not sin.

22. So then, do not attach your heart to every word that is spoken, lest perhaps you may hear your servant speaking ill of you.

23. For your conscience knows that you, too, have repeatedly spoken evil of others.

24. I have tested everything in wisdom. I have said: "I will be wise." And wisdom withdrew farther from me,

25. so much more than it was before. Wisdom is very profound, so who shall reveal her?

26. I have examined all things in my soul, so that I may know, and consider, and seek out wisdom and reason, and so that I may recognize the impiety of the foolish, and the error of the imprudent.

27. And I have discovered a woman more bitter than death: she who is like the snare of a hunter, and whose heart is like a net, and whose hands are like chains. Whoever pleases God shall flee from her. But whoever is a sinner shall be seized by her.

28. Behold, Ecclesiastes said, I have discovered these things, one after another, in order that I might discover the explanation

29. which my soul still seeks and has not found. One man among a thousand, I have found; a woman among them all, I have not found.

30. This alone have I discovered: that God made man righteous, and yet he has adulterated himself with innumerable questions. Who is so great as the wise? And who has understood the meaning of the word?