⁵The one who keeps a command(ment)
will not know (experience) a bad thing.
And the heart of a wise person will know
the right time and just way.
⁶Because for every business
there is a right time and just way
-when what is bad for people is great upon them.
⁷Because they don’t know what will happen,
because who can tell them when it will happen?
⁸There’s no person who has power over the wind/breath/spirit,
to hold back the wind/breath/spirit,
and there’s no one who has power
over the day of death.
There’s no discharge during the battle,
and wickedness does not allow an escape
to those are masters (of wickedness).
⁹ I saw all this as I gave my heart to every action
that happens under the sun,
the time – when one person holds power over (another) person,
with bad results for them.

Lord God,
you feed us with the living bread from heaven;
you renew our faith,
increase our hope,
and strengthen our love.

Teach us to hunger
for Christ who is the true and living bread,
and to live by every word
that comes from your mouth,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

8 Who is like the wise person,
and who knows the meaning of a word?:

‘A person’s wisdom brightens their face,
and the strength of their face is changed’.

²I (?) keep the king’s word,
and on account of the word of oath to God ³don’t be fearful.

You go out from before him;
don’t stand against a bad word.
Because he can do anything that he pleases,
⁴in that the king’s word has power,
And who can say to him, ‘What are you doing?’;

Eternal Light, shine into our hearts;
Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil;
Eternal Power, be our support;
Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance:
That we may seek your face
with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. Amen.

Alcuin

²⁶I myself find more bitter than death
is the woman who is a great snare,
whose heart is a great net,
whose hands are a great chain.
One who is good-before-God escapes from her,
but the one who sins is caught by her.
²⁷Look, this is what I’ve found,
– Qoholet said-
adding one thing to another
to find a conclusion,
²⁸which my heart sought further
but did not find.
I found one human being among a thousand,
but a woman among these I didn’t find.
²⁹ Look at this alone,
I found that God made humanity upright,
but they have sought many schemes.

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

²³I tested all this with wisdom,
I said ‘Let me be wise’,
but it is far from me.
²⁴What happens is far away
and deep, deep; who can find it out?
²⁵I myself turned round my heart
to know
and to explore,
and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things,
and to know that wickedness is foolishness
and foolishness is madness.

ternal Light, shine into our hearts,
Eternal Goodness, deliver us from evil,
Eternal Power, be our support,
Eternal Wisdom, scatter the darkness of our ignorance,
Eternal Pity, have mercy upon us;
that with all our heart and mind
and soul and strength we may seek thy face
and be brought by thine infinite mercy
to thy holy presence;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Alcuin (735-804)

¹⁹Wisdom strengthens a wise person
more than ten rulers who were there in a city.
²⁰Because there’s no righteous person on earth
who does good
and does not do wrong.
²¹Also do not give your heart
to all the things that people say,
so that you don’t hear your servant cursing you,
²²because your heart also
knows that many times you too have cursed other people.

Lord, you have given me so much,
I ask for one more thing –
a grateful heart.

George Herbert

¹⁵I’ve seen everything in my mere-breath-life:
There’s a righteous person who dies in their righteousness
and there’s a unrighteous person who keeps on going in their unrighteousness.

¹⁶Don’t be greatly righteous
and don’t be greatly wise: why should you be devastated?
¹⁷Don’t be greatly unrighteous and don’t be a fool:
why die when it’s not your time?

¹⁸It’s good that you take hold of this one
but also not let go of your grasp of the other,
because someone in awe of God will escape with both of them.

Be thou a bright flame before me,
Be thou a guiding star above me
Be thou a smooth path below me
Be thou a kindly shepherd behind me
Today – tonight -forever
Amen.

St Columba

⁸The end of something is better than its beginning ,
patience of spirit is better than the pride of spirit.
⁹Don’t be quick in your spirit to be exasperated,
because anger settles in the bosom of fools.

¹⁰Don’t say, ‘How is it
that the earlier days were better than these’,
because it’s not out of wisdom that you ask this.

¹¹Wisdom is good, like an inheritance,
and something valuable to people who see the sun.
¹²Because as wisdom shades,
so silver shades.
But the value of knowledge
is that wisdom keeps its masters alive.

¹³See God’s activity,
because who is able to straighten what he has twisted?
¹⁴In the day of good, be in the good things,
and in the day when things are bad, see:
God made both this one as well as that one,
with the result that a person cannot find out
anything (that comes) after them.

O Love, O God who created me, in your love recreate me.
O Love, who redeemed me,
fill up in me whatever part of your love
has fallen into neglect within me.
O Love, O God, who first loved me,
grant that with my whole heart,
and with my whole soul,
and with my whole strength,
I may love you.

Gertrude the Great

⁵It is better to listen to the reprimand of a wise person
than to be listening to the song of fools,
⁶because like the sound of thistle twigs under a pot
is the laughter of fools
and this too is mere breath.
⁷because (surely?) oppression
can make a mockery out of a wise person,
and a gift can destroy the heart.

Teach us, good Lord,
to serve thee as thou deservest;
to give and not to count the cost;
to fight and not to heed the wounds;
to toil and not to seek for rest;
to labour and not to ask for any reward,
save that of knowing that we do thy will,
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen

St Ignatius

7 A good name is better than good oil,
so is the day of death than the day of birth.

²It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting ,

For it (death) is the end of everyone
and the living person should take it to their heart.

³Vexation is better than laughter,
because in sadness of face there is good for the heart

⁴The heart of the wise is in a house of mourning,
the heart of the fool is in a house of rejoicing.

Grant, Lord,
that we may hold to you without parting,
worship you without wearying,
serve you without failing;
faithfully seek you,
happily find you,
and forever possess you,
the only God,blessed now and for ever.
Amen

St Anselm

¹⁰What has happened already its name is called
and what a human person is was known.
And a person is not able to argue with One who is stronger than them,
¹¹because the more the words are, the more is mere-breathiness.
What’s the advantage for a person?
¹²Because who knows what is good for a person in life,
for the number of the days of his breathy life?
A person spends them, like a shadow,
so who can tell them
what will happen under the sun after them?

Thank you, dear Jesus,
for all you have given me,
for all you have taken away from me,
for all you have left me.

Thomas More (c.1478-1535)