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Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:6
New International Version
Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:6
New International Version
16 When I applied my mind to know wisdom(A) and to observe the labor that is done on earth(B)—people getting no sleep day or night— 17 then I saw all that God has done.(C) No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.(D)
A Common Destiny for All
9 So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them.(E) 2 All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.
As it is with the good,
so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
so with those who are afraid to take them.(F)
3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.(G) The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live,(H) and afterward they join the dead.(I) 4 Anyone who is among the living has hope[b]—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 9:2 Septuagint (Aquila), Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew does not have and the bad.
- Ecclesiastes 9:4 Or What then is to be chosen? With all who live, there is hope
Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:6
King James Version
Ecclesiastes 8:16-9:6
King James Version
16 When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:)
17 Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.
9 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
2 All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
New International Version (NIV) 
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