20. Remember: there’s no one on earth so righteous as to do good only and never make a mistake.
21. Don’t worry about all the things people say, so you don’t hear your servant cursing you.
22. After all, you know that you’ve often cursed others yourself!
23. I tested all of this by wisdom. I thought, I will be wise, but it eluded me.
24. All that happens is elusive and utterly unfathomable. Who can grasp it?
25. I turned my mind to know, to investigate, and to seek wisdom, along with an account of things, to know that wickedness is foolishness and folly is madness.
26. I found one woman more bitter than death: she who is a trap, her heart a snare, her hands shackles. Anyone who pleases God escapes her, but a sinner is trapped by her.
27. See, this is what I found, says the Teacher, examining one matter after another to account for things.
28. But there’s something that I constantly searched for but couldn’t find: I found one man among a thousand, but I couldn’t find a woman among any of these.
29. See, this alone I found: God made human beings straightforward, but they search for many complications.