Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised
The God-Given Task
9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.[a]
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Ecclesiastes 3:15 Heb what is pursued
Ecclesiastes 3:9-15
New International Version
9 What do workers gain from their toil?(A) 10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.(B) 11 He 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) 12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. 13 That each of them may eat and drink,(F) and find satisfaction(G) in all their toil—this is the gift of God.(H) 14 I 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)
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 3:11 Or also placed ignorance in the human heart, so that
- Ecclesiastes 3:15 Or God calls back the past
New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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.