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26 I learned this:
    Some women are like a trap that catches animals.
Women like that are more dangerous than death.
    They may pretend to love you.
    They may hold you in their arms.
But really their arms are like chains.
They want to catch you,
    as hunters catch animals.
Women like that will easily catch
    a man who has turned away from God.
But a man who pleases God
    will escape from them.

27 This is what I, the Teacher, have learned.

I studied everything very carefully.
    I wanted to know the reason why things happen.
28 I continued to try to learn more and more.
    But I could not find the answers.
Among one thousand people,
    I found one good man.
But among them all,
    I did not find a good woman.

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26 I find more bitter than death
    the woman who is a snare,(A)
whose heart is a trap
    and whose hands are chains.
The man who pleases God will escape her,
    but the sinner she will ensnare.(B)

27 “Look,” says the Teacher,[a](C) “this is what I have discovered:

“Adding one thing to another to discover the scheme of things—
28     while I was still searching
    but not finding—
I found one upright man among a thousand,
    but not one upright woman(D) among them all.

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Footnotes

  1. Ecclesiastes 7:27 Or the leader of the assembly