Study Desk

So I congratulated the dead who are already dead, more than the living who are still living.

When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to look at them?

As he came naked from his mother's womb, so he will return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand.

This also is a sickening evil: exactly as a person is born, so will he die. What then is the advantage for him who labors for the wind?

a person to whom God has given riches, wealth, and honor, so that his soul lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God has not given him the opportunity to enjoy these things, but a foreigner enjoys them. This is futility and a severe affliction.

For as the crackling of thorn bushes under a pot, So is the laughter of the fool; And this too is futility.

On the day of prosperity be happy, But on the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other So that a person will not discover anything that will come after him.

Also, do not take seriously all the words which are spoken, so that you do not hear your servant cursing you,

So then, I have seen the wicked buried, those who used to go in and out of the holy place, and they are soon forgotten in the city where they did such things. This too is futility.

So I commended pleasure, for there is nothing good for a person under the sun except to eat, drink, and be joyful, and this will stand by him in his labor throughout the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.

It is the same for all. There is one fate for the righteous and for the wicked; for the good, for the clean and the unclean; for the person who offers a sacrifice and for the one who does not sacrifice. As the good person is, so is the sinner; the one who swears an oath is just as the one who is afraid to swear an oath.

For indeed, a person does not know his time: like fish that are caught in a treacherous net and birds caught in a snare, so the sons of mankind are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them.

So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the wisdom of the poor man is despised, and his words are ignored.

Dead flies turn a perfumer's oil rancid, so a little foolishness is more potent than wisdom and honor.

The labor of a fool makes him so weary that he does not even know how to go to a city.

Just as you do not know the path of the wind, and how bones are formed in the womb of the pregnant woman, so you do not know the activity of God who makes everything.

So remove sorrow from your heart and keep pain away from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.

"How handsome you are, my beloved, And so delightful! Indeed, our bed is luxuriant!

"Like a lily among the thorns, So is my darling among the young women."

"Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest, So is my beloved among the young men. In his shade I took great delight and sat down, And his fruit was sweet to my taste.