Old Testament · Poetry and wisdom

Ecclesiastes chapter 9

I took all of this to heart and examined it carefully: the , the , and everything they do are held in . Yet whether love or hate awaits them, no one can tell. Everything that lies ahead remains hidden from them.The same comes to everyone — to the good and the corrupt, to the and the unclean, to the one who offers and the one who doesn’t. What happens to the good person happens equally to the one who . The one who makes promises before God and the one who’s afraid to make them end up in the same place.This is the bitter truth woven through everything that happens : the same fate meets everyone. And because of this, the human heart is full of , and fills their minds while they’re alive — and after that, they join the dead.But for anyone still among the living, there is — because a living is better off than a dead .The living at least know they will die, but the dead know nothing at all. There is no more for them — even the of them fades away.Their love, their hate, their — all of it has already vanished. They have no anymore in anything that happens under the sun.So go — eat your food with joy, and drink your with a , because God has already of what you do.Let your clothes always be , and never run out of .Enjoy life with the woman you love through all the fleeting days of your life — every one of those days God has given you under the sun. Because that is your in life, and in the work you pour yourself into under the sun.Whatever your hand finds to do, throw yourself into it with everything you have — because in where you’re headed, there is no work, no planning, no knowledge, and no .I looked again at life under the sun: the race doesn’t always go to the fastest, the battle doesn’t always go to the strongest, bread doesn’t always go to the wise, wealth doesn’t always go to the brilliant, and recognition doesn’t always go to the skilled — because and overtake them all.No one even knows when their will come. Like fish caught in a cruel , or birds trapped in a snare — just like them, people are caught by sudden disaster when it crashes down on them without warning.I also observed this example of under the sun, and it struck me deeply:There was a small city with only a few people in it. A powerful king marched against it, surrounded it, and built massive around it.But inside the city there was a man who was wise, and he saved the city through his wisdom. Yet afterward, no one that poor man.So I concluded: wisdom is better than . But the poor man’s wisdom gets , and his words go unheard.The of the wise are worth more than the shouting of a ruler surrounded by .Wisdom is better than , but one person’s can destroy an enormous amount of .