Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity.

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way in which I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.

For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; he hath smitten my life down to the ground; he hath made me to dwell in darkness, as those that have been long dead.

While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises to my God while I have any being.

He hath not dealt so with any nation: and as for his judgments, they have not known them. Praise ye the LORD.

To execute upon them the judgment written: this honor have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.

Cast in thy lot among us; let us all have one purse:

Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded;

But ye have set at naught all my counsel, and rejected my reproof:

I have taught thee in the way of wisdom; I have led thee in right paths.

For they sleep not, except they have done mischief; and their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall.

And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to them that instructed me!

I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows.

Therefore I came forth to meet thee, diligently to seek thy face, and I have found thee.

I have decked my bed with coverings of tapestry, with carved works, with fine linen of Egypt.

I have perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.

For she hath cast down many wounded: yes, many strong men have been slain by her.

Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.

Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled.

He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.

In the fear of the LORD is strong confidence: and his children shall have a place of refuge.

A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren.

Delight is not seemly for a fool; much less for a servant to have rule over princes.

The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing.

Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?

That thy trust may be in the LORD, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee.

Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge,

Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.

The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him.

They have stricken me, wilt thou say, and I was not sick; they have beaten me, and I felt it not: when shall I awake? I will seek it yet again.

These things also belong to the wise. It is not good to have respect of persons in judgment.

For better it is that it be said to thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldst be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thy eyes have seen.

And thou shalt have goats milk enough for thy food, for the food of thy household, and for maintenance for thy maidens.

Whoever causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit: but the upright shall have good things in possession.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but he who confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread: but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.

To have respect of persons is not good: for, for a piece of bread that man will transgress.

He that giveth to the poor shall not want: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse.

He that delicately bringeth up his servant from a child shall have him at length become his son.

Surely I am more brutish than any man, and have not the understanding of a man.

I neither learned wisdom, nor have the knowledge of the holy.

Two things have I required of thee; deny them not to me before I die:

Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.

The locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands;

The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.

Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all.

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

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

And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have showed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.

I have seen the labor, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yes, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-eminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.

Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone?

There is no end of all the people, even of all that have been before them: they also that come after shall not rejoice in him. Surely this also is vanity and vexation of spirit.

There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners of them to their hurt.

Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is common among men:

For wisdom is a defense, and money is a defense: but the excellence of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.

All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.

All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me.

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

Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.

Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.

All this have I seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun: there is a time in which one man ruleth over another to his own hurt.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, hath now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed to me great:

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which proceedeth from the ruler:

I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.

Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard have I not kept.

I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.

Take for us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.

I have come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh, with my spice; I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey; I have drank my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yes, drink abundantly, O beloved.

I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?

Turn away thy eyes from me, for they have overcome me: thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead.

The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

We have a little sister, and she hath no breasts: what shall we do for our sister in the day when she shall be spoken for?

My vineyard which is mine, is before me: thou, O Solomon, must have a thousand, and those that keep the fruit of it two hundred.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the LORD hath spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel to anger, they are gone away backward.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.

Except the LORD of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom; we should have been like Gomorrah.

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which ye have desired, and ye shall be confounded for the gardens that ye have chosen.

Their land also is full of idols; they worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made:

The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe to their soul! for they have rewarded evil to themselves.

The LORD will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and with their princes: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.

In that day shall the branch of the LORD be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that have escaped of Israel.

When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst of it by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.

What more could have been done to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I expected that it would bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

Therefore my people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge: and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.

Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

And the LORD shall have removed men far away, and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land.

Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,

The LORD will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days that have not come, from the day that Ephraim departed from Judah; even the king of Assyria.

For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria.

And when they shall say to you, Seek to them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek to their God? for the living to the dead?

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shades of death, upon them hath the light shined.