³⁵ I am this day ^(A)eighty years old. Can I discern what is pleasant and what is not? Can your servant taste what he eats or what he drinks? Can I still listen to the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be ^(B)an added burden to my lord the king?

³³ David said to him, “If you go on with me, you will be ^(A)a burden to me.

⁶⁵ besides their male and female servants, of whom there were 7,337, and they had 200 male and female ^(A)singers.

³ if indeed you have ^(A)tasted that the Lord is good.

¹⁴ But solid food is for ^(A)the mature, for those who have their powers ^(B)of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.

Remember Your Creator in Your Youth

12 Remember also your Creator in ^(A)the days of your youth, before ^(B)the evil days come and the years draw near of which ^(C)you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; ² before ^(D)the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, ³ in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and ^(E)those who look through the windows are dimmed, ⁴ and ^(F)the doors on the street are shut—when ^(G)the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all ^(H)the daughters of song are brought low— ⁵ they are afraid also of what is high, and ^(I)terrors are in the way; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along,^[a] and desire fails, because man is going to his ^(J)eternal ^(K)home, and the ^(L)mourners go about the streets—

⁸ I also gathered for myself silver and ^(A)gold and the treasure of ^(B)kings and ^(C)provinces. I got ^(D)singers, both men and women, and many ^(E)concubines,^[a] the delight of the sons of man.