Ecclesiastes 9
Whatever Your Hand Finds to Do, Do with Your Might
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One Event Comes to All
9:1For I set all this upon my heart, and my heart saw all this: the righteous, the wise and their works are in God’s hand. A person knows neither love nor hatred; everything lies before them.
9:2There is futility in everything: one event comes to the righteous and the ungodly, to the good and the bad, to the clean and the unclean, to the one who sacrifices and the one who does not sacrifice. As the good person, so the sinner; as the one who swears, so the one who fears an oath.
9:3This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: one event comes to everyone. Moreover, the heart of human beings is full of evil, and delirium is in their heart during their lives; afterward they go to the dead.
9:4Who shares with all the living? There is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
9:5For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, for their memory is forgotten.
9:6Their love, their hatred and their envy have already perished; they have no further share forever in anything done under the sun.
Eat Your Bread with Gladness
9:7Come, eat your bread with gladness and drink your wine with a good heart, for God has already favored your deeds.
9:8Let your garments be white at all times, and let oil not be lacking on your head.
9:9Enjoy life with the woman whom you love, all the days of your futile life that have been given you under the sun, all your futile days; for this is your share in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.
9:10Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your strength, for there is no deed, reckoning, knowledge or wisdom in Hades, where you are going.
The Race Is Not to the Swift
9:11Again I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor battle to the mighty, nor bread to the wise, nor wealth to those with understanding, nor favor to those with knowledge; for time and encounter happen to them all.
9:12For a person does not know his time: like fish caught in an evil net, and birds caught in a snare, so human beings are trapped at an evil time when it falls upon them suddenly.
The Poor Wise Man and the Small City
9:13This too I saw as wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me:
9:14There was a small city with few people in it; a great king might come against it, surround it and build great siegeworks against it,
9:15and he might find in it a poor wise man, who will deliver the city by his wisdom; yet no one remembered that poor man.
9:16I said, Wisdom is better than strength; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
9:17The words of the wise, heard quietly, are better than the shouting of rulers in follies.
9:18Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.