Ecclesiastes 10

¹Flies dying mar the sweetness of ointment. Wisdom and glory is more precious, than a little and temporal folly.

²The heart of a wiseman is in his right hand, and the heart of a fool is in his left hand.

³Yea and the fool walking in the way, whereas himself is unwise, esteemeth all men fools.

⁴If the spirit of him that hath power, ascend upon thee, leave not thy place: because carefulness will make the greatest sins to cease.

⁵There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, as it were by error proceeding from the face of the Prince:

⁶a fool set in high dignity, and the rich to sit beneath.

⁷I have seen servants upon horses: and Princes walking on the ground as servants.

⁸He that diggeth a pit, shall fall into it: and he that breaketh the hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

⁹He that removeth stones, shall be afflicted in them: and he that cutteth trees, shall be wounded of them.

¹⁰If the iron shall be blunt, and that not as before, but shall be made blunt, it shall be sharpened by great labour: and after industry shall wisdom follow.

¹¹If a serpent bite in silence, nothing less than it hath he, that detracteth secretly.

¹²The words of the mouth of a wiseman grace: and the lips of the unwise shall throw him down headlong.

¹³The beginning of his words is folly, and the later end of his mouth is most wicked error.

¹⁴A fool multiplieth words. A man is ignorant what hath been before him: and what shall be after him, who can tell him?

¹⁵The labour of fools shall afflict them, that know not to go into the city.

¹⁶Woe to thee o land, whose king is a child, and whose Princes eat in the morning.

¹⁷Blessed is the land whose king is noble, & whose Princes eat in their time, to refection, and not to riotousness.

¹⁸In slothfulness the roof of the house shall go to ruin, & in the infirmity of the hands the house shall drop through.

¹⁹They make bread for laughter, and wine, that living they may make merry: and to money all things obey.

²⁰In thy cogitation detract not from the king, and in the secret of thy chamber curse not the richman: because even the birds of the air will carry thy voice, and he that hath wings will declare the sentence.