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) 14} Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.^{(C) 15} Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will,^(D) we will live and do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.^(E)

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)

² For he says,

I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.

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