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Ecclesiastes 7:14-16
New Catholic Bible
Ecclesiastes 7:14-16
New Catholic Bible
14 When things are going well, be grateful for your blessings,
and in times of adversity consider this:
God has made both of them,
so that we cannot predict with confidence
what the future holds.
Whoever Wants To Be an Angel Ends Up as a Beast[a]
15 During my span of life I have seen everything:
Righteous people who perish in their uprightness,
and wicked people who grow old in their wickedness.
16 Do not be excessively righteous
or show yourself to be unduly wise.[b]
Why should you destroy yourself?
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 7:15 We should not imagine that by dint of our performance in justice, i.e., in virtue, we could guarantee our future and rejoice at the fall of the wicked. Such a pretense would ordinarily become perverted into pride and severity. Wisdom is the power of life, but no one can possess it; we can only try to live wisely and humbly.
- Ecclesiastes 7:16 Excessively righteous . . . unduly wise: these attitudes are to be avoided, for they lead to self-righteousness and pride.
