Ecclesiastes 3:9-15

New International Version

⁹What do workers gain from their toil?^(A) ¹⁰I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.^(B) ¹¹He has made everything beautiful in its time.^(C) He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet^[a] no one can fathom^(D) what God has done from beginning to end.^(E) ¹²I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. ¹³That each of them may eat and drink,^(F) and find satisfaction^(G) in all their toil—this is the gift of God.^(H) ¹⁴I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.^(I)

¹⁵Whatever is has already been,^(J)
and what will be has been before;^(K)
and God will call the past to account.^[b]

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Footnotes

Ecclesiastes 3:11 Or also placed ignorance in the human heart, so that
Ecclesiastes 3:15 Or God calls back the past

Ecclesiastes 6:1-2

New International Version

6 I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on mankind: ²God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them,^(A) and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.^(B)

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Ecclesiastes 7:15-17

New International Version

¹⁵In this meaningless life^(A) of mine I have seen both of these:

the righteous perishing in their righteousness,
    and the wicked living long in their wickedness.^(B)
¹⁶Do not be overrighteous,
    neither be overwise—
    why destroy yourself?
¹⁷Do not be overwicked,
    and do not be a fool—
    why die before your time?^(C)