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

When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, thou knew my path. In the way in which I walk they have hidden a snare for me.

For the enemy has persecuted my soul. He has smitten my life down to the ground. He has made me to dwell in dark places as those who have been long dead.

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

He has not dealt so with any nation. And as for his ordinances, they have not known them. Praise ye LORD.

to execute upon them the judgment written. All his sanctified have this honor. Praise ye LORD.

Thou shall cast thy lot among us. We will all have one bag.

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

but ye have made all my counsel void, and want none of my reproof,

Do not say to thy neighbor, Go, and come again, and tomorrow I will give, when thou have it by thee.

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

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

Neither have I obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined my ear to those who instructed me!

My son, if thou have become surety for thy neighbor, if thou have struck thy hands for a stranger,

Do this now, my son, and deliver thyself, since thou have come into the hand of thy neighbor. Go, humble thyself, and importune thy neighbor.

Sacrifices of peace-offerings are with me. I have paid my vows this day.

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

I have spread my couch with carpets of tapestry, with striped cloths of the yarn of Egypt.

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

I, wisdom, have made prudence my dwelling, and find out knowledge [and] discretion.

Counsel is mine, and sound knowledge. I am understanding, I have might.

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

He who tills his land shall have plenty of bread, but he who pursues vanities is void of understanding.

He who guards his mouth keeps his life. He who opens wide his lips shall have destruction.

Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished, but he who gathers by labor shall have increase.

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

A servant who deals wisely shall have rule over a son who causes shame, and shall have part in the inheritance among the brothers.

Luxurious living is not fitting for a fool, much less for a servant to have rule over rulers.

The sluggard will not plow because of the winter. Therefore he shall 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 LORD, I have made [them] known to thee this day, even to thee.

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

If thou have not wherewith to pay, why should he take away thy bed from under thee?

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

so the knowledge of wisdom [is] to thy soul. If thou have found it, then there shall be a reward, and thy hope shall not be cut off.

These also are from the wise: To have respect of persons in judgment is not good.

For it is better that it be said to thee, Come up here, than that thou should be put lower in the presence of the prince, whom thine eyes have seen.

Have thou found honey? Eat as much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled with it, and vomit it.

He who tills his land shall have plenty of bread, but he who follows after vanity shall have poverty enough.

To have respect of persons is not good, nor that a man should transgress for a piece of bread.

He who gives to the poor shall not lack, but he who hides his eyes shall have many a curse.

He who brings up his servant gently from childhood shall have him become a son at the last.

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

and I have not learned wisdom, nor have I the knowledge of the Holy.

Two things I have asked of thee, deny me not before I die:

So is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats, and wipes her mouth, and says, I have done no iniquity.

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

If thou have done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou have thought evil, [lay] thy hand upon thy mouth.

The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he shall have no lack of gain.

Many daughters have done worthily, but thou excel them all.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I have gotten for me great wisdom above all who were before me in Jerusalem. Yea, my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance forever, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. And how the wise man dies even as the fool!

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

For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, without him?

I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men to be employed therewith.

For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts, even one thing befalls them; as the one dies, so dies the other. Yea, they all have one breath, and man has no preeminence above the beasts; for all is vanity.

There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: Riches [were] kept by the owner of it to his hurt.

Behold, that which I have seen to be good and to be fitting is [for a man] to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor in which he labors under the sun all the days of his life which God has given him, for this is his p

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

All this I have seen in my days of vanity. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs [his life] in his evil-doing.

For many times also thine own heart knows that thou thyself likewise have cursed others.

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

Behold, I have found this, says the Preacher, [laying] one thing to another, to find out the account,

which my soul still seeks, but I have not found: among a thousand I have found one man, but among all those I have not found a woman.

Behold, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many contrivances.

All this I have seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun. [There is] a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.

For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, nor have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

As well their love, as their hatred and their envy, has perished long ago, nor have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.

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

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

I have seen servants upon horses, and rulers walking like servants upon the earth.

Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shall say, I have no pleasure in them,

The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened [by] the masters of assemblies. They have been given from one shepherd.

Thine oils have a good fragrance. Thy name is oil poured forth. Therefore the virgins love thee.

Look not upon me, because I am swarthy, because the sun has scorched me. My mother's sons were incensed against me. They made me keeper of the vineyards, [but] my own vineyard I have not kept.

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

Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats that lay along the side of Gilead.

Thy teeth are like a flock of ewes, which have come up from the washing, of which every one has twins, and none is bereaved among them.

The mandrakes give forth fragrance. And at our doors are all manner of precious fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.

We have a little sister, and she has 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, shall have the thousand, and those who keep the fruit of it, two hundred.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for LORD has spoken. I have nourished and brought up sons, and they have rebelled against me.

Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evil-doers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken LORD. They have despised the Holy One of Israel. They have gone away backward.

From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it, [but] wounds, and bruises, and fresh stripes. They have not been closed nor bound up nor soothed with oil.

Unless LORD of hosts had left to us a {seed (LXX/NT)}, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah.

What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says LORD. I have had enough of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts. And I do not delight in the blood of bullocks or of lambs or of he-goats.

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

For thou have forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they are filled [with things] from the east, and [are] soothsayers like the Philistines. And they strike hands with the children of foreigners.

Their land is also full of idols. They worship the work of their own hands, that which their own fingers have made,

In that day men shall cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for them to worship, to the moles and to the bats,

When a man shall take hold of his brother in the house of his father, [saying], Thou have clothing, be thou our ruler, and let this ruin be under thy hand,

The show of their countenance witnesses against them, and they declare their sin as Sodom; they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have done evil to themselves.

Woe to the wicked! [It is] ill [with him], for what his hands have done shall be done to him.

LORD will enter into judgment with the elders of his people, and the rulers of it. It is ye who have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of a poor man is in your houses.

In that day the branch of LORD shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land shall be excellent and comely for those who have escaped from Israel.

when 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 justice, and by the spirit of burning.

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

And the harp and the lute, the tambourine and the pipe, and wine, are [in] their feasts, but they do not regard the work of LORD, nor have they considered the operation of his hands.

Therefore my people have gone into captivity for lack of knowledge, and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst.