Study Desk

This too is a grievous evil: Exactly as a man is born, so he will depart. What does he gain as he toils for the wind?

God gives a man riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires; but God does not allow him to enjoy them. Instead, a stranger will enjoy them. This is futile and a grievous evil.

For like the crackling of thorns under the pot, so is the laughter of the fool. This too is futile.

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider this: God has made one of these along with the other, so that a man cannot discover anything that will come after him.

As no man has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has authority over his day of death. As no one can be discharged in wartime, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.

Then too, I saw the burial of the wicked who had come and gone from the holy place and were praised in the city where they had done so. This too is futile.

So I commended the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a man under the sun than to eat and drink and be merry. For this joy will accompany him in his labor during the days of his life that God gives him under the sun.

So I took all this to heart and concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their deeds, are in God's hands. Man does not know what lies ahead, whether love or hate.

It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.

For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.

As dead flies bring a stench to the perfumer's oil, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.

As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

So if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything to come is futile.

So banish sorrow from your heart, and cast off pain from your body, for youth and vigor are fleeting.

I will arise now and go about the city, through the streets and squares. I will seek the one I love. So I sought him but did not find him.

How is your beloved better than others, O most beautiful among women? How is your beloved better than another, that you charge us so?

I am a wall and my breasts are like towers. So I have become in his eyes like one who brings peace.

And many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in His paths." For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

So mankind is brought low, and man is humbled-do not forgive them!

So the pride of man will be brought low, and the loftiness of men will be humbled; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day,