1For all this I laid to my heart, so as to examine all of it: that the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God. Whether love or hatred, man does not know; everything lies before them.
2Everything is alike for all: one fate comes to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean and to the unclean, to the one who sacrifices and to the one who does not sacrifice; as with the good, so with the sinner; the one who swears an oath as the one who fears an oath.
3This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one fate comes to all. And also the heart of the sons of man is full of evil, and madness is in their heart during their lives; and after that — to the dead.
4For whoever is joined to all the living has hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing at all, and there is no longer any reward for them, for the memory of them is forgotten.
6Their love and their hatred and their jealousy have already perished, and they have no portion ever again in all that is done under the sun.
7Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a glad heart, for God has already approved your works.
8At every time let your garments be white, and let oil not be lacking on your head.
9See life with a wife whom you love, all the days of your fleeting life that he has given you under the sun, all your fleeting days; for that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
10All that your hand finds to do, do with your strength; for there is no work or reckoning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, where you are going.
11I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the mighty, nor even bread to the wise, nor even riches to the discerning, nor even favor to those with knowledge; for time and chance happen to them all.
12For man also does not know his time: like fish caught in an evil net, and like birds seized in a snare, so the sons of man are ensnared at an evil time, when it falls upon them suddenly.
13This also I saw as wisdom under the sun, and it was great to me:
14There was a small city with few men in it, and a great king came against it and surrounded it and built great siegeworks against it.
15And there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no one remembered that poor man.
16So I said, “Wisdom is better than might, yet the wisdom of the poor man is despised, and his words are not heeded.”
17The words of the wise, spoken in quiet, are heeded more than the shout of a ruler among fools.
18Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.
Open in the interactive reader →