Boasting About Tomorrow

¹³ Come now, you who say, ^(A)“Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— ¹⁴ yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For ^(B)you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead you ought to say, ^(C)“If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogance. ^(D)All such boasting is evil.

¹⁹ And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up ^(A)for many years; relax, ^(B)eat, drink, be merry.”’ ²⁰ But God said to him, ^(C)‘Fool! ^(D)This night ^(E)your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, ^(F)whose will they be?’

² For he says,

Behold, ^(B)now is the ^(C)favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.

¹⁹ Moreover, the Lord will give Israel also with you into the hand of the Philistines, and tomorrow you ^(A)and your sons shall be with me. The Lord will give the army of Israel also into the hand of the Philistines.”