Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Now listen,^(A) you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”^(B)

¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool!^(A) This very night your life will be demanded from you.^(B) Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’^(C)

³ They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks^(A) and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone,^(B) and tar^(C) for mortar. ⁴ Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens,^(D) so that we may make a name^(E) for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered^(F) over the face of the whole earth.”^(G)

Pleasures Are Meaningless

2 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure^(A) to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless.

³⁰ those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep;