Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Good News Translation

A Time for Everything

3 Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses.

²He sets the time for birth and the time for death,
the time for planting and the time for pulling up,
³the time for killing and the time for healing,
the time for tearing down and the time for building.
⁴He sets the time for sorrow and the time for joy,
the time for mourning and the time for dancing,
⁵the time for making love and the time for not making love,
the time for kissing and the time for not kissing.
⁶He sets the time for finding and the time for losing,
the time for saving and the time for throwing away,
⁷the time for tearing and the time for mending,
the time for silence and the time for talk.
⁸He sets the time for love and the time for hate,
the time for war and the time for peace.

⁹What do we gain from all our work? ¹⁰I know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us. ¹¹He has set the right time for everything. He has given us a desire to know the future, but never gives us the satisfaction of fully understanding what he does.

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