Ecclesiastes 1; Ecclesiastes 2; Ecclesiastes 3; Ecclesiastes 4; Ecclesiastes 5; Ecclesiastes 6

1 These are the words of the Philosopher, David's son, who was king in Jerusalem.

2 It is useless, useless, said the Philosopher. Life is useless, all useless.

3 You spend your life working, laboring, and what do you have to show for it?

4 Generations come and generations go, but the world stays just the same.

5 The sun still rises, and it still goes down, going wearily back to where it must start all over again.

6 The wind blows south, the wind blows north - round and round and back again.

7 Every river flows into the sea, but the sea is not yet full. The water returns to where the rivers began, and starts all over again.

8 Everything leads to weariness - a weariness too great for words. Our eyes can never see enough to be satisfied; our ears can never hear enough.

9 What has happened before will happen again. What has been done before will be done again. There is nothing new in the whole world.

10 "Look," they say, "here is something new!" But no, it has all happened before, long before we were born.

11 No one remembers what has happened in the past, and no one in days to come will remember what happens between now and then.

12 I, the Philosopher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

13 I determined that I would examine and study all the things that are done in this world. God has laid a miserable fate upon us.

14 I have seen everything done in this world, and I tell you, it is all useless. It is like chasing the wind.

15 You can't straighten out what is crooked; you can't count things that aren't there.

16 I told myself, "I have become a great man, far wiser than anyone who ruled Jerusalem before me. I know what wisdom and knowledge really are."

17 I was determined to learn the difference between knowledge and foolishness, wisdom and madness. But I found out that I might as well be chasing the wind.

18 The wiser you are, the more worries you have; the more you know, the more it hurts.

1 I decided to enjoy myself and find out what happiness is. But I found that this is useless, too.

2 I discovered that laughter is foolish, that pleasure does you no good.

3 Driven on by my desire for wisdom, I decided to cheer myself up with wine and have a good time. I thought that this might be the best way people can spend their short lives on earth.

4 I accomplished great things. I built myself houses and planted vineyards.

5 I planted gardens and orchards, with all kinds of fruit trees in them;

6 I dug ponds to irrigate them.

7 I bought many slaves, and there were slaves born in my household. I owned more livestock than anyone else who had ever lived in Jerusalem.

8 I also piled up silver and gold from the royal treasuries of the lands I ruled. Men and women sang to entertain me, and I had all the women a man could want.

9 Yes, I was great, greater than anyone else who had ever lived in Jerusalem, and my wisdom never failed me.

10 Anything I wanted, I got. I did not deny myself any pleasure. I was proud of everything I had worked for, and all this was my reward.

11 Then I thought about all that I had done and how hard I had worked doing it, and I realized that it didn't mean a thing. It was like chasing the wind - of no use at all.

12 After all, a king can only do what previous kings have done. So I started thinking about what it meant to be wise or reckless or foolish.

13 Oh, I know, "Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness.

14 The wise can see where they are going, and fools cannot." But I also know that the same fate is waiting for us all.

15 I thought to myself, "What happens to fools is going to happen to me, too. So what have I gained from being so wise?" "Nothing," I answered, "not a thing."

16 No one remembers the wise, and no one remembers fools. In days to come, we will all be forgotten. We must all die - wise and foolish alike.

17 So life came to mean nothing to me, because everything in it had brought me nothing but trouble. It had all been useless; I had been chasing the wind.

18 Nothing that I had worked for and earned meant a thing to me, because I knew that I would have to leave it to my successor,

19 and he might be wise, or he might be foolish - who knows? Yet he will own everything I have worked for, everything my wisdom has earned for me in this world. It is all useless.

20 So I came to regret that I had worked so hard.

21 You work for something with all your wisdom, knowledge, and skill, and then you have to leave it all to someone who hasn't had to work for it. It is useless, and it isn't right!

22 You work and worry your way through life, and what do you have to show for it?

23 As long as you live, everything you do brings nothing but worry and heartache. Even at night your mind can't rest. It is all useless.

24 The best thing we can do is eat and drink and enjoy what we have earned. And yet, I realized that even this comes from God.

25 How else could you have anything to eat or enjoy yourself at all?

26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and happiness to those who please him, but he makes sinners work, earning and saving, so that what they get can be given to those who please him. It is all useless. It is like chasing the wind.

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

2 He sets the time for birth and the time for death, the time for planting and the time for pulling up,

3 the time for killing and the time for healing, the time for tearing down and the time for building.

4 He sets the time for sorrow and the time for joy, the time for mourning and the time for dancing,

5 the time for making love and the time for not making love, the time for kissing and the time for not kissing.

6 He sets the time for finding and the time for losing, the time for saving and the time for throwing away,

7 the time for tearing and the time for mending, the time for silence and the time for talk.

8 He sets the time for love and the time for hate, the time for war and the time for peace.

9 What do we gain from all our work?

10 I know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us.

11 He 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.

12 So I realized that all we can do is be happy and do the best we can while we are still alive.

13 All of us should eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for. It is God's gift.

14 I know that everything God does will last forever. You can't add anything to it or take anything away from it. And one thing God does is to make us stand in awe of him.

15 Whatever happens or can happen has already happened before. God makes the same thing happen again and again.

16 In addition, I have also noticed that in this world you find wickedness where justice and right ought to be.

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."

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. There is no way for us to know what will happen after we die.

1 Then I looked again at all the injustice that goes on in this world. The oppressed were crying, and no one would help them. No one would help them, because their oppressors had power on their side.

2 I envy those who are dead and gone; they are better off than those who are still alive.

3 But better off than either are those who have never been born, who have never seen the injustice that goes on in this world.

4 I have also learned why people work so hard to succeed: it is because they envy the things their neighbors have. But it is useless. It is like chasing the wind.

5 They say that we would be fools to fold our hands and let ourselves starve to death.

6 Maybe so, but it is better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind.

7 I have noticed something else in life that is useless.

8 Here is someone who lives alone. He has no son, no brother, yet he is always working, never satisfied with the wealth he has. For whom is he working so hard and denying himself any pleasure? This is useless, too - and a miserable way to live.

9 Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively.

10 If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls, it's just too bad, because there is no one to help him.

11 If it is cold, two can sleep together and stay warm, but how can you keep warm by yourself?

12 Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break.

13 Someone may rise from poverty to become king of his country, or go from prison to the throne, but if in his old age he is too foolish to take advice, he is not as well off as a young man who is poor but intelligent.

15 I thought about all the people who live in this world, and I realized that somewhere among them there is a young man who will take the king's place.

16 There may be no limit to the number of people a king rules; when he is gone, no one will be grateful for what he has done. It is useless. It is like chasing the wind.

1 Be careful about going to the Temple. It is better to go there to learn than to offer sacrifices like foolish people who don't know right from wrong.

2 Think before you speak, and don't make any rash promises to God. He is in heaven and you are on earth, so don't say any more than you have to.

3 The more you worry, the more likely you are to have bad dreams, and the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something foolish.

4 So when you make a promise to God, keep it as quickly as possible. He has no use for a fool. Do what you promise to do.

5 Better not to promise at all than to make a promise and not keep it.

6 Don't let your own words lead you into sin, so that you have to tell God's priest that you didn't mean it. Why make God angry with you? Why let him destroy what you have worked for?

7 No matter how much you dream, how much useless work you do, or how much you talk, you must still stand in awe of God.

8 Don't be surprised when you see that the government oppresses the poor and denies them justice and their rights. Every official is protected by someone higher, and both are protected by still higher officials.

9 Even a king depends on the harvest.

10 If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want. It is useless.

11 The richer you are, the more mouths you have to feed. All you gain is the knowledge that you are rich.

12 Workers may or may not have enough to eat, but at least they can get a good night's sleep. The rich, however, have so much that they stay awake worrying.

13 Here is a terrible thing that I have seen in this world: people save up their money for a time when they may need it,

14 and then lose it all in some bad deal and end up with nothing left to pass on to their children.

15 We leave this world just as we entered it - with nothing. In spite of all our work there is nothing we can take with us.

16 It isn't right! We go just as we came. We labor, trying to catch the wind, and what do we get?

17 We get to live our lives in darkness and grief, worried, angry, and sick.

18 Here is what I have found out: the best thing we can do is eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for during the short life that God has given us; this is our fate.

19 If God gives us wealth and property and lets us enjoy them, we should be grateful and enjoy what we have worked for. It is a gift from God.

20 Since God has allowed us to be happy, we will not worry too much about how short life is.

1 I have noticed that in this world a serious injustice is done.

2 God will give us wealth, honor, and property, yes, everything we want, but then will not let us enjoy it. Some stranger will enjoy it instead. It is useless, and it just isn't right.

3 We may have a hundred children and live a long time, but no matter how long we live, if we do not get our share of happiness and do not receive a decent burial, then I say that a baby born dead is better off.

4 It does that baby no good to be born; it disappears into darkness, where it is forgotten.

5 It never sees the light of day or knows what life is like, but at least it has found rest -

6 more so than the man who never enjoys life, though he may live two thousand years. After all, both of them are going to the same place.

7 We do all our work just to get something to eat, but we never have enough.

8 How are the wise better off than fools? What good does it do the poor to know how to face life?

9 It is useless; it is like chasing the wind. It is better to be satisfied with what you have than to be always wanting something else.

10 Everything that happens was already determined long ago, and we all know that you cannot argue with someone who is stronger than you.

11 The longer you argue, the more useless it is, and you are no better off.

12 How can anyone know what is best for us in this short, useless life of ours - a life that passes like a shadow? How can we know what will happen in the world after we die?