For all this I laid to my heart,{HR}Even to explore all this,{HR}That the righteous, and the wise,{HR}And their works, are in the hand of God:{HR}Whether it be love or hatred,{HR}Man knoweth it not; all is before them.
All things [come] alike to all:{HR}There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked;{HR}To the good, and to the clean and to the unclean;{HR}To him that sacrificeth and to him that sacrificeth not:{HR}As is the good, so is the sinner;{HR}He that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
This is an evil in all that is done under the sun,{HR}That there is one event unto all:{HR}Yea also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil,{HR}And madness is in [their] heart while they live;{HR}And, after that, they go to the dead.
For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope;{HR}For a living dog is better than a dead lion.
For the living know that they shall die:{HR}But the dead know not anything,{HR}Neither have they anymore a reward,{HR}For the memory of them is forgotten.
As well their love, as their hatred{HR}And their envy, is now perished;{HR}Neither have they any more a portion forever{HR}In anything that is done under the sun.
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy,{HR}And drink thy wine with a merry heart;{HR}For God hath already accepted thy works.
Let thy garments be always white,{HR}And let not thy head lack unguent.
Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest{HR}All the days of the life of thy vanity,{HR}Which he hath given thee under the sun,{HR}All the days of thy vanity:{HR}For that is thy portion in life,{HR}And in thy labour wherein thou labourest under the sun.
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do,{HR}Do with thy might;{HR}For there is no work, nor device,{HR}Nor knowledge, nor wisdom,{HR}In Sheol whither thou goest.
I returned and saw under the sun,{HR}That the race is not to the swift,{HR}Nor the battle to the strong,{HR}Neither yet bread to the wise,{HR}Nor yet riches to men of understanding,{HR}Nor yet favour to men of knowledge;{HR}But time and chance happeneth to them all.
For man also knoweth not his time:{HR}As the fishes that are taken in an evil net,{HR}And as the birds that are caught in the snare,{HR}Even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,{HR}When it falleth suddenly upon them.
I have also seen wisdom under the sun on this wise,{HR}And it seemed great unto me:
There was a little city,{HR}And few men within it;{HR}And there came a great king against it,{HR}And besieged it,{HR}And built great bulwarks against it:
And there was found in it a poor wise man,{HR}And he by his wisdom delivered the city;{HR}Yet no man remembered that same poor man.
Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength:{HR}Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised,{HR}And his words are not heard.
The words of the wise spoken in quiet{HR}Are heard more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.
Wisdom is better than weapons of war:{HR}But one sinner destroyeth much good.