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Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
New Living Translation
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
New Living Translation
4 Farmers who wait for perfect weather never plant.
If they watch every cloud, they never harvest.
5 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.
6 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.
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 11:5 Some manuscripts read Just as you cannot understand how breath comes to a tiny baby in its mother’s womb.
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
New International Version
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
New International Version
4 Whoever watches the wind will not plant;
whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.
5 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.
6 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.
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 11:5 Or know how life (or the spirit) / enters the body being formed
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
King James Version
Ecclesiastes 11:4-6
King James Version
4 He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap.
5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.
6 In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good.
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New Living Translation (NLT)
Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
New International Version (NIV) 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.