What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
Parallel translations
- WEB That which is crooked can’t be made straight; and that which is lacking can’t be counted.
- KJV That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
- NKJV What is crooked cannot be made straight, And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
- NASB What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
- NLT What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted. Human effort cannot fix the deep disorder and deficiencies of a fallen world.
Overview
This proverb acknowledges the limits of wisdom to correct life's distortions. The brokenness of the world resists human repair, exposing our inability to set things right. Only God can ultimately straighten what is crooked, a hope realized in Christ, who reconciles all things and will make the crooked places straight.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Eccl 7:12–13For wisdom, like money, is a shelter, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.
- Matt 6:27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
- Eccl 3:14I know that everything God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God does it so that they should fear Him.
- Isa 40:4Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain.
- Job 34:29But when He remains silent, who can condemn Him? When He hides His face, who can see Him? Yet He watches over both man and nation,
- Job 11:6and disclose to you the secrets of wisdom, for true wisdom has two sides. Know then that God exacts from you less than your iniquity deserves.
- Lam 3:37Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it?
- Dan 4:35All the peoples of the earth are counted as nothing, and He does as He pleases with the army of heaven and the peoples of the earth. There is no one who can restrain His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 1:15 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.