Ecclesiastes 9 · קהלת

For all this I laid to my heart, and sought to clarify all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their deeds, are in the hand of God: no man knows whether love or hatred is in store: all is before them.

All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him who sacrifices, and to him who does not sacrifice: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he who swears, as he who fears an oath.

This is an evil in all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event to all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know nothing, nor do they have any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now long perished; nor have they any more a portion forever in any thing that is done under the sun.

Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted thy works.

Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no oil.

Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he has given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in life, and in thy labour in which thou dost labour under the sun.

Whatever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy strength, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in She᾽ol, whither thou goest.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happens to them all.

For man also knows not his time: like the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and like the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.

This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great to me:

there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great siegeworks against it:

now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom saved the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.

Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.

The words of wise men heard in quiet are better than the cry of him who rules among fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroys much good.