Ecclesiastes 6

Riches He Was Not Given Power to Enjoy

← Ecclesiastes 5  ·  Ecclesiastes: all chapters  ·  Ecclesiastes 7 →

An Evil Great upon Human Beings

6:1There is an evil I have seen beneath the sun, and it is great upon human beings:

6:2a person to whom God gives wealth, possessions and glory, so that his soul lacks nothing it desires, yet God does not empower him to eat from it, for a stranger will eat it. This is futility and a grievous sickness.

6:3If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however numerous the days of his years, but his soul is not filled with goodness and he has no burial, I say a stillborn child is better off than he,

6:4for it came in futility and goes in darkness, and in darkness its name will be covered,

6:5and though it has not seen the sun or known anything, it has more rest than he.

6:6Even if he lived through courses of a thousand years but saw no goodness, do not all go to one place?

All a Person’s Toil Is for His Mouth

6:7All a person’s toil is for his mouth, yet his appetite will not be filled.

6:8For what advantage has the wise person over the fool? For the poor person knows how to walk before life.

6:9Better a sight for the eyes than wandering in appetite. This too is futility and resolve of spirit.

6:10Whatever has come to be already has its name, and it is known what a human being is; he cannot contend in judgment with one stronger than himself.

6:11For many words increase futility; what advantage has a person?

6:12For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the numbered days of his life of futility? He has spent them in a shadow. Who can tell a person what will be after him beneath the sun?

← Ecclesiastes 5  ·  Ecclesiastes: all chapters  ·  Ecclesiastes 7 →

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