Ecclesiastes 3:18-22

New International Reader's Version

¹⁸ I also said to myself, “God tests human beings. He does this so they can see that in certain ways they are like animals. ¹⁹ Surely what happens to animals happens to people too. Death waits for people and animals alike. People die, just as animals do. All of them have the same breath. People don’t have any advantage over animals. Nothing has any meaning. ²⁰ People and animals go to the same place. All of them come from dust. And all of them return to dust. ²¹ Who can know whether the spirit of a person goes up? Who can tell whether the spirit of an animal goes down into the earth?”

²² So a person should enjoy their work. That’s what God made them for. I saw that there’s nothing better for them to do than that. After all, who can show them what will happen after they are gone?