Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom

Ecclesiastes chapter 12

And your in the days of your — before the difficult days arrive, and the years draw near when you’ll say, “There’s nothing in these that gives me pleasure.”Before the and the light grow dark, and the moon and the stars, and the clouds return after the rain —In the day when the tremble, and the stoop, and the stop because they are so few, and see only dimness —When the are shut and the fades low, when you , and all the grow quiet —When they are afraid of heights, and terrors lurk along the road, and the , and the , and fails — because a person is going to their , and the circle through the streets —Before the is snapped, and the is shattered, and the is broken at the spring, and the is crushed at the well —And the returns to the ground it came from, and the returns to God who gave it.“ of vapors,” says the . “Everything is vapor.”Beyond being himself, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge. He weighed and searched out and arranged many .The Teacher searched to find , and what is written here is — words of .The words of the wise are like , and their collected sayings are like — given by .And beyond these, , be warned: there is no end to the making of many , and too much study wears out the body.The , when everything has been heard, is this: God and keep his — this is what it means to be .Because God will bring every act to — including every , whether good or .