Ecclesiastes 5

Let Your Words Be Few, for God Is in Heaven

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Do Not Be Hasty with Your Mouth

5:1Do not be hasty with your mouth, and do not let your heart hurry to bring out a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few.

5:2For a dream comes with much distraction, and a fool’s voice with many words.

5:3Whenever you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for there is no delight in fools. Pay whatever you vow.

5:4Better that you do not vow than that you vow and do not pay.

5:5Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, and do not say before God, It was ignorance, lest God become angry at your voice and destroy the works of your hands.

5:6For with many dreams come futilities and many words; therefore fear God.

Extortion of the Poor

5:7If you see extortion of the poor and robbery of judgment and righteousness in a region, do not be astonished at the matter, for a high official is above another to keep watch, and higher ones are above them.

5:8The land’s surplus is in everything—a king of a cultivated field.

Riches That Do Not Satisfy

5:9Whoever loves silver will not be filled with silver; and who has loved a yield in their abundance? This too is futility.

5:10When goodness increases, those who consume it increase. What strength has its possessor except to look at it with his eyes?

5:11Sweet is the slave’s sleep, whether he eats little or much; but being filled with riches does not let him sleep.

5:12There is a sickness I have seen beneath the sun: wealth kept by its possessor to his harm,

5:13and that wealth will be lost through a grievous distraction, and he fathered a son with nothing in his hand.

5:14As he came naked from his mother’s womb, he will return to depart as he came. He will take nothing from his toil to carry in his hand.

5:15This too is a grievous sickness: just as he came, so he will depart. What surplus has he from toiling for the wind?

5:16All his days are in darkness and mourning, with much anger, sickness and wrath.

What I Have Seen to Be Good and Fitting

5:17Look, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and see goodness in all one’s toil beneath the sun during the numbered days of life God has given, for that is one’s portion.

5:18Moreover, every person to whom God has given wealth and possessions, and whom He has empowered to eat from them, take his portion and rejoice in his toil—this is God’s gift.

5:19For he will not often remember the days of his life, because God distracts him with the gladness of his heart.

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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.