Proverbs 31 - Ecclesiastes 2
New King James Version
The Words of King Lemuel’s Mother
31 The words of King Lemuel, the utterance which his mother taught him:
2 What, my son?
And what, son of my womb?
And what, (A)son of my vows?
3 (B)Do not give your strength to women,
Nor your ways (C)to that which destroys kings.
4 (D)It is not for kings, O Lemuel,
It is not for kings to drink wine,
Nor for princes intoxicating drink;
5 (E)Lest they drink and forget the law,
And pervert the justice of all [a]the afflicted.
6 (F)Give strong drink to him who is perishing,
And wine to those who are bitter of heart.
7 Let him drink and forget his poverty,
And remember his misery no more.
8 (G)Open your mouth for the speechless,
In the cause of all who are [b]appointed to die.
9 Open your mouth, (H)judge righteously,
And (I)plead the cause of the poor and needy.
The Virtuous Wife
10 (J)Who[c] can find a [d]virtuous wife?
For her worth is far above rubies.
11 The heart of her husband safely trusts her;
So he will have no lack of gain.
12 She does him good and not evil
All the days of her life.
13 She seeks wool and flax,
And willingly works with her hands.
14 She is like the merchant ships,
She brings her food from afar.
15 (K)She also rises while it is yet night,
And (L)provides food for her household,
And a portion for her maidservants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
From [e]her profits she plants a vineyard.
17 She girds herself with strength,
And strengthens her arms.
18 She perceives that her merchandise is good,
And her lamp does not go out by night.
19 She stretches out her hands to the distaff,
And her hand holds the spindle.
20 (M)She extends her hand to the poor,
Yes, she reaches out her hands to the needy.
21 She is not afraid of snow for her household,
For all her household is clothed with scarlet.
22 She makes tapestry for herself;
Her clothing is fine linen and purple.
23 (N)Her husband is known in the gates,
When he sits among the elders of the land.
24 She makes linen garments and sells them,
And supplies sashes for the merchants.
25 Strength and honor are her clothing;
She shall rejoice in time to come.
26 She opens her mouth with wisdom,
And on her tongue is the law of kindness.
27 She watches over the ways of her household,
And does not eat the bread of idleness.
28 Her children rise up and call her blessed;
Her husband also, and he praises her:
29 “Many daughters have done well,
But you excel them all.”
30 Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing,
But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised.
31 Give her of the fruit of her hands,
And let her own works praise her in the gates.
The Vanity of Life
1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, (O)king in Jerusalem.
3 (R)What profit has a man from all his labor
In which he [g]toils under the sun?
4 One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
(S)But the earth abides forever.
5 (T)The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And [h]hastens to the place where it arose.
6 (U)The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit.
7 (V)All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
8 All things are [i]full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
(W)The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 (X)That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which it may be said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
11 There is (Y)no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.
The Grief of Wisdom
12 I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my heart to seek and (Z)search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven; (AA)this burdensome task God has given to the sons of man, by which they may be [j]exercised. 14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and indeed, all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
15 (AB)What is crooked cannot be made straight,
And what is lacking cannot be numbered.
16 I communed with my heart, saying, “Look, I have attained greatness, and have gained (AC)more wisdom than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My heart has [k]understood great wisdom and knowledge.” 17 (AD)And I set my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is grasping for the wind.
18 For (AE)in much wisdom is much grief,
And he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.
The Vanity of Pleasure(AF)
2 I said (AG)in my heart, “Come now, I will test you with (AH)mirth; [l]therefore enjoy pleasure”; but surely, (AI)this also was vanity. 2 I said of laughter—“Madness!”; and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” 3 (AJ)I searched in my heart how [m]to gratify my flesh with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was (AK)good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.
4 I made my works great, I built myself (AL)houses, and planted myself vineyards. 5 I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made myself water pools from which to [n]water the growing trees of the grove. 7 I acquired male and female servants, and had [o]servants born in my house. Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. 8 (AM)I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and [p]musical instruments of all kinds.
9 (AN)So I became great and [q]excelled (AO)more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;
And (AP)this was my [r]reward from all my labor.
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was (AQ)vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.
The End of the Wise and the Fool
12 Then I turned myself to consider wisdom (AR)and madness and folly;
For what can the man do who succeeds the king?—
Only what he has already (AS)done.
13 Then I saw that wisdom (AT)excels folly
As light excels darkness.
14 (AU)The wise man’s eyes are in his head,
But the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I myself perceived
That (AV)the same event happens to them all.
15 So I said in my heart,
“As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?”
Then I said in my heart,
“This also is vanity.”
16 For there is (AW)no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,
Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.
And how does a wise man die?
As the fool!
17 Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
18 Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because (AX)I must leave it to the man who will come after me. 19 And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. 21 For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his [s]heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 (AY)For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? 23 For all his days are (AZ)sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.
24 (BA)Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor. This also, I saw, was from the hand of God. 25 For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, [t]more than I? 26 For God gives (BB)wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who is good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that (BC)he may give to him who is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind.
Footnotes
- Proverbs 31:5 Lit. sons of affliction
- Proverbs 31:8 Lit. sons of passing away
- Proverbs 31:10 Vv. 10–31 are an alphabetic acrostic in Hebrew; cf. Ps. 119
- Proverbs 31:10 Lit. a wife of valor, in the sense of all forms of excellence
- Proverbs 31:16 Lit. the fruit of her hands
- Ecclesiastes 1:2 Or Absurdity, Frustration, Futility, Nonsense; and so throughout the book
- Ecclesiastes 1:3 labors
- Ecclesiastes 1:5 Is eager for, lit. panting
- Ecclesiastes 1:8 wearisome
- Ecclesiastes 1:13 Or afflicted
- Ecclesiastes 1:16 Lit. seen
- Ecclesiastes 2:1 gladness
- Ecclesiastes 2:3 Lit. to draw my flesh
- Ecclesiastes 2:6 irrigate
- Ecclesiastes 2:7 Lit. sons of my house
- Ecclesiastes 2:8 Exact meaning unknown
- Ecclesiastes 2:9 Lit. increased
- Ecclesiastes 2:10 Lit. portion
- Ecclesiastes 2:21 Lit. portion
- Ecclesiastes 2:25 So with MT, Tg., Vg.; some Heb. mss., LXX, Syr. without Him
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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