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Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant.
    If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.

Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb,[a] so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.

Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.

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Footnotes

  1. 11:5 Some manuscripts read Just as you cannot understand how breath comes to a tiny baby in its mother’s womb.

Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
    whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.

As you do not know the path of the wind,(A)
    or how the body is formed[a] in a mother’s womb,(B)
so you cannot understand the work of God,
    the Maker of all things.

Sow your seed in the morning,
    and at evening let your hands not be idle,(C)
for you do not know which will succeed,
    whether this or that,
    or whether both will do equally well.

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Footnotes

  1. Ecclesiastes 11:5 Or know how life (or the spirit) / enters the body being formed