Ecclesiastes 1:15

Good News Translation

You can't straighten out what is crooked; you can't count things that aren't there.

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
What is crooked cannot be straightened;what is lacking cannot be counted.

Hebrew Names Version
That which is crooked can't be made straight; and that which is lacking can't be counted.

King James Version
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

English Standard Version
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

New American Standard Bible
What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

New Century Version
If something is crooked, you can't make it straight. If something is missing, you can't say it is there.

Amplified Bible
What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is defective and lacking cannot be counted.

World English Bible
That which is crooked can't be made straight; and that which is lacking can't be counted.

Geneva Bible (1587)
That which is crooked, can none make straight: and yt which faileth, cannot be nombred.

Legacy Standard Bible
What is bent cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

Berean Standard Bible
What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

Contemporary English Version
If something is crooked, it can't be made straight; if something isn't there, it can't be counted.

Complete Jewish Bible
What is crooked can't be straightened; what is not there can't be counted.

Darby Translation
That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

Easy-to-Read Version
If something is crooked, you cannot say it is straight. And if something is missing, you cannot say it is there.

George Lamsa Translation
The chaotic cannot be made orderly; and he who is lacking knowledge cannot be supplied with it.

Lexham English Bible
What is twisted cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

Literal Translation
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and that lacking cannot be numbered.

Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
The croked can not be mayde straight, & the fautes ca not be nobred.

American Standard Version
That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

Bible in Basic English
That which is bent may not be made straight, and that which is not there may not be numbered.

JPS Old Testament (1917)
That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

King James Version (1611)
That which is crooked, cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbred.

Bishop's Bible (1568)
The croked can not be made straight, nor the imperfection of thynges can be numbred.

Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and deficiency cannot be numbered.

English Revised Version
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Weiward men ben amendid of hard; and the noumbre of foolis is greet with outen ende.

Update Bible Version
That which is crooked can't be made straight; and that which is wanting can't be numbered.

Webster's Bible Translation
[That which is] crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.

New English Translation
What is bent cannot be straightened, and what is missing cannot be supplied.

New King James Version
What is crooked cannot be made straight, And what is lacking cannot be numbered.

New Living Translation
What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered.

New Life Bible
What is not straight cannot be made straight. What is not there cannot be numbered.

New Revised Standard
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted.

J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
That which is crooked, cannot be straight, - and, that which is wanting, cannot be reckoned.

Douay-Rheims Bible
The perverse are hard to be corrected, and the number of fools is infinite.

Revised Standard Version
What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be numbered.

Young's Literal Translation
A crooked thing [one] is not able to make straight, and a lacking thing is not able to be numbered.

THE MESSAGE
Life's a corkscrew that can't be straightened, A minus that won't add up.

New American Standard Bible (1995)
What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.

Contextual Overview

¹² I, the Philosopher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³ I determined that I would examine and study all the things that are done in this world. God has laid a miserable fate upon us. ¹⁴ I have seen everything done in this world, and I tell you, it is all useless. It is like chasing the wind. ¹⁵ You can't straighten out what is crooked; you can't count things that aren't there. ¹⁶ I told myself, "I have become a great man, far wiser than anyone who ruled Jerusalem before me. I know what wisdom and knowledge really are." ¹⁷ I was determined to learn the difference between knowledge and foolishness, wisdom and madness. But I found out that I might as well be chasing the wind. ¹⁸ The wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

crooked: Ecclesiastes 3:14, Ecclesiastes 7:12, Ecclesiastes 7:13, Job 11:6, Job 34:29, Isaiah 40:4, Lamentations 3:37, Daniel 4:35, Matthew 6:27

wanting: Heb. defect

Reciprocal: Job 23:13 - who can Isaiah 42:16 - crooked John 21:25 - that even

Gill's Notes on the Bible

[That which is] crooked cannot be made straight,.... By all the art and cunning, wisdom and knowledge of man, that he can attain unto; whatever he, in the vanity of his mind, may find fault with in the works of God, either of nature of providence, and which he may call crooked, it is not in his power to make them straight, or to mend them; see Ecclesiastes 7:13. There is something which, through sin, is crooked, in the hearts, in the nature, in the principles, ways and works, of men; which can never be made straight, corrected or amended, by all the natural wisdom and knowledge of men, which shows the insufficiency of it: the wisest philosophers among men, with all their parade of wit and learning, could never effect anything of this kind; this only is done by the Spirit and grace of God; see Isaiah 42:16;

and that which is wanting cannot be numbered; the deficiencies in human science are so many, that they cannot be reckoned up; and the defects in human nature can never be supplied or made up by natural knowledge and wisdom; and which are so numerous, as that they cannot be understood and counted. The Targum is,

"a man whose ways are perverse in this world, and dies in them, and does not return by repentance, he has no power of correcting himself after his death; and a man that fails from the law and the precepts in his life, after his death hath no power to be numbered with the righteous in paradise:''

to the same sense Jarchi's note and the Midrash.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

He saw clearly both the disorder and incompleteness of human actions (compare the marginal reference), and also man’s impotence to rectify them.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 15. That which is crooked cannot be made straight — There are many apparent irregularities and anomalies in nature for which we cannot account; and there are many defects that cannot be supplied. This is the impression from a general view of nature; but the more we study and investigate its operations, the more we shall be convinced that all is a consecutive and well-ordered whole; and that in the chain of nature not one link is broken, deficient, or lost.