Ecclesiastes 3:11-4:6

Contemporary English Version

¹¹ God makes everything happen at the right time. Yet none of us can ever fully understand all he has done, and he puts questions in our minds about the past and the future. ¹² I know the best thing we can do is to always enjoy life, ¹³ because God's gift to us is the happiness we get from our food and drink and from the work we do. ¹⁴ Everything God has done will last forever; nothing he does can ever be changed. God has done all this, so that we will worship him.

The Future Is Known Only to God

¹⁶ Everywhere on earth I saw violence and injustice instead of fairness and justice. ¹⁷ So I told myself that God has set a time and a place for everything. He will judge everyone, both the wicked and the good. ¹⁸ I know God is testing us to show us that we are merely animals. ¹⁹ Like animals we breathe and die, and we are no better off than they are. It just doesn't make sense. ²⁰ All living creatures go to the same place. We are made from earth, and we return to earth. ²¹ Who really knows if our spirits go up and the spirits of animals go down into the earth? ²² We were meant to enjoy our work, and that's the best thing we can do. We can never know the future.

4 I looked again and saw people being mistreated everywhere on earth. They were crying, but no one was there to offer comfort, and those who mistreated them were powerful. ² I said to myself, “The dead are better off than the living. ³ But those who have never been born are better off than anyone else, because they have never seen the terrible things that happen on this earth.”

⁴ Then I realized that we work and do wonderful things just because we are jealous of others. This makes no more sense than chasing the wind.^[b]