Beginning

5 ¶ Watch thy feet when thou goest to the house of God and draw near with more willingness to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know how to do what God wants.

² Do not be rash with thy mouth and do not let thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God, for God is in heaven and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.

³ For out of much preoccupation comes the dream, and the voice of the fool out of a multitude of words.

⁴ ¶ When thou dost vow a vow unto God, do not defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools; pay that which thou hast vowed.

⁵ It is better that thou should not vow than that thou should vow and not pay.

⁶ Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was ignorance. Why should thou cause God to be angry because of thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands?

⁷ Because dreams abound, and vanities and the words are many, but fear thou God.

⁸ If thou seest violence unto the poor and the extortion of rights and justice in a province, do not marvel at the matter, for height is looking upon height; and there is one higher than they.

⁹ ¶ And there is higher authority in all of the things of the earth, but he who serves the field is king.

¹⁰ He that loves money shall not be satisfied with money; nor he that loves abundance with increase; this is also vanity.

¹¹ When goods increase, those that eat them are increased; and what good is there to the owners thereof, except the beholding of them with their eyes?

¹² The sleep of the servant is sweet whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

¹³ There is another sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt;

¹⁴ which are lost by evil pursuits and to the sons which he has begotten; there is nothing left in his hand.

¹⁵ As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.

¹⁶ And this also is a sore evil; that in all points as he came, so shall he go; and what profit has he that has laboured for the wind?

¹⁷ In addition to this, all the days of his life he shall eat in darkness, with much wrath and pain and sorrow sickness.

¹⁸ ¶ Behold therefore the good which I have seen: that good is to eat and to drink and to enjoy of the good of all his labour that he takes under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him; for it is his portion.

¹⁹ Likewise, unto every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.

²⁰ To such a one, God will remove the concerns common to others, for God shall answer him with joy from his heart.

6 ¶ There is another evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is very common among men:

² A man to whom God has given riches, wealth, and honour so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to eat of it, but the strangers eat it; this is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

³ If a man begets a hundred sons and lives many years so that the days of his years are many, if his soul is not filled with good and also that he have no burial; I say that an aborted birth is better than he.

⁴ For he came in vain and departs unto darkness, and his name shall be covered with darkness.

⁵ Even though he has not seen the sun nor known any thing; this one has more rest than the other.

⁶ For though the other should live a thousand years twice and has not enjoyed good; both shall surely go to the same place.

⁷ ¶ All the labour of man is for his mouth, and with all this the appetite is not filled.

⁸ For what has the wise more than the fool? what more has the poor that knows how to walk among the living?

⁹ It is better to enjoy the good that is present than the wandering of desire; this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.

¹⁰ He that is has been named already; and it is known that he is man and that he shall not be able to contend with him that is mightier than he.

¹¹ ¶ Certainly the many words multiply vanity, what more does man have?

¹² For who knows what is good for man in this life, all the days of the life of his vanity which he causes to be as a shadow? for who shall teach the man what shall be after him under the sun?

7 ¶ A good name is better than precious ointment and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.

² It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.

³ Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made whole.

⁴ The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.

⁵ It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than to hear the song of fools.

⁶ The laughter of the fool is as the crackling of thorns under a pot, and this also (the laughter or prosperity of the fool) is vanity.

⁷ ¶ Surely oppression makes a wise man mad, and a gift destroys the heart.

⁸ Better is the end of a thing than its beginning, and he who has suffered in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.

⁹ Do not be hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of fools.

¹⁰ Never say, What is the cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost not enquire wisely concerning this.

¹¹ ¶ Knowledge is good with an inheritance and is the excellency of those that see the sun.

¹² For knowledge is a defence, and money is a defence; but wisdom excels in that it gives life to those that have it.

¹³ Consider the work of God; for who can make straight that which he has twisted?

¹⁴ In the day of good enjoy that which is good, but in the day of adversity open your eyes and learn: God also has made the one (the day of adversity) before the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.

¹⁵ All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perishes for his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongs his days by his wickedness.

¹⁶ Do not be too legalistic; neither make thyself over wise in thine own eyes: why should thou destroy thyself?

¹⁷ Do not be hasty to condemn, neither be thou foolish: why should thou die in the midst of thy labours?

¹⁸ It is good that thou should take hold of this; and also from the other not withdraw thy hand; for he that fears God shall come through with everything.

¹⁹ Wisdom strengthens the wise more than ten mighty men who are in the city.

²⁰ For surely there is not a just man upon earth that in doing good does not sin.

²¹ Also do not take to heart all the words that are spoken lest thou hear thy slave speak evil of thee:

²² For thine own heart knows that thou thyself likewise hast spoken evil of others many times.

²³ ¶ All this I have proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me.

²⁴ That which has been is far off and that which is exceeding deep, who can find it out?

²⁵ I applied my heart to know and to search and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly and the madness of error;

²⁶ and I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands are bonds; whosoever pleases God shall escape from her, but the sinner shall be held prisoner in her.

²⁷ Behold, this I have found, saith the preacher, weighing things one by one to find out the answer,

²⁸ which my soul yet seeks, but I find not: one man among a thousand I have found, but a woman among all those I have not found.

²⁹ Behold, this only have I found: that God has made man upright, but they have sought out many perversions.

8 ¶ Who is as the wise man? and who is as he who knows the interpretation of all things? The wisdom of this man shall make his face to shine, and the coarseness of his face shall be changed.

² I counsel thee to keep the king’s commandment and the word of the covenant that thou hast made with God.

³ Do not be hasty to rebel against him; do not persist in any evil thing, for he shall do whatsoever pleases him;

⁴ because the word of the king is his power and who may say unto him, What doest thou?

⁵ Whosoever keeps the commandment shall experience no evil thing, and a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment.

⁶ ¶ Because for every will there is time and judgment, because the evil of man is great upon him,

⁷ for he does not know that which shall be; nor when it shall be. Who will teach it to him?

⁸ There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither does he have power over the day of death, and weapons are of no use in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

⁹ ¶ All this I have seen and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: the time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt.

¹⁰ Then I also saw that the wicked who were buried came into remembrance more than those who had frequented the holy place, and these were forgotten in the city where they had worked uprightly. This also is vanity.

¹¹ Because the sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

¹² Though a sinner does evil one hundred times and his judgment is prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with those that fear God, who fear before his presence;

¹³ but it shall never be well with the wicked, neither shall his days be prolonged, which are as a shadow, because he did not fear before the presence of God.

¹⁴ ¶ There is another vanity which is done upon the earth: that there are just men, who are recompensed as if they had done according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men, who are recompensed as if they had done according to the work of the righteous; I say that this also is vanity.

¹⁵ Therefore I commended joy because a man has no better thing under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be merry, for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun.

¹⁶ Therefore I applied mine heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done upon the earth (for also there is he that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes).

¹⁷ And I have seen regarding all the works of God that man cannot attain to understand the work that is being done under the sun, because though a man labours to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; even though the wise man says that he knows it, yet he shall not be able to attain it.