5 Teacher: Watch your step when you enter the house of God. Be ready to listen quietly rather than rushing in to offer up a sacrifice to foolish people, for they have no idea that what they do is evil.

² Do not be too hasty to speak your mind before God or too quick to make promises you won’t keep, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore, watch your tongue; let your words be few. ³ For just as busyness breeds restless dreams, so wordiness reveals the voice of a fool.

⁴ If you make a promise to God, do not be slow to keep it; for He takes no pleasure in fools. So do what you have promised. ⁵ In fact, it would be better not to make a vow in the first place than to make it and not fulfill it. ⁶ Do not let your mouth lead you to sin, and do not claim before the temple messenger that your vow was a mistake. Why should God be angry at the sound of your voice and destroy everything you’ve worked hard to achieve? ⁷ Daydreaming and excessive talking are pointless and fleeting things to do, like trying to catch hold of a breath. What good comes from them? It is better to quietly reverence God.

⁸ If you see the poor oppressed, justice denied, and righteousness rejected in a particular place, then do not be surprised at this; for those in power are watched over by those higher up, and they in turn by some even higher. ⁹ Still, it is better for the land in every way to have a king who cultivates the fields.^[a]

This, too, is fleeting. ¹¹ The more goods there are, the more people there are to consume them. How does any of this really benefit the owners except they can gaze proudly on their possessions? ¹² Sweet sleep comes to those who work hard, regardless of how much or how little they’ve eaten. But the abundance of the rich keeps them awake at night.

Teacher: ¹³ I have witnessed a grave evil pervading our world, one that has been with us since the first sunrise: harm comes to all who hoard their riches. ¹⁴ Such riches can easily vanish through some misfortune, so that the rich have nothing left to pass along to their children. ¹⁵ We all came naked from our mother’s womb, and we will leave this world as we came, taking nothing of the wealth for which we have toiled. ¹⁶ Here, too, is another grave evil: all of us, no matter who we are, will depart this world exactly the same way as we came into it. So what good does it do to continue to toil after the wind? ¹⁷ So all our days we eat in darkness, with mounting frustration, suffering, and anger.

¹⁸ Then it dawned on me that this is good and proper: to eat and drink and find the good in all the toil that we undertake under the sun during the few days God has given, for this is our lot in life. ¹⁹ Also, God gives wealth, possessions, and power to enjoy those things, and He allows them to accept their lot in life and to enjoy hard work. This is God’s gift. ²⁰ For people like this have no time to despair over life because God keeps them so busy with a deep-seated joy.