Ecclesiastes 3:17-22

17 I told myself, "God is going to judge the righteous and the evil alike, because every thing, every action, will happen at its own set time." [a]
18 I decided that God is testing us, to show us that we are no better than animals.
19 After all, the same fate awaits human beings and animals alike. One dies just like the other. They are the same kind of creature. A human being is no better off than an animal, because life has no meaning for either.
20 They are both going to the same place - the dust. They both came from it; they will both go back to it.
21 How can anyone be sure that the human spirit goes upward while an animal's spirit goes down into the ground?
22 So I realized then that the best thing we can do is enjoy what we have worked for. There is nothing else we can do. [b] There is no way for us to know what will happen after we die.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. [Probable text] its own set time; [Hebrew] its own set time there.
  • [b]. what we have . . . do; [or] our work, because we are going to have to do it anyway.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.