Study Desk

Also, he eats in darkness all his days; he is frustrated in much sickness and resentment.

Look! I have discovered what is good and fitting: to eat and to drink and to enjoy all the fruit of the toil with which one toils under the sun during the number of the days of his life that God gives to him—for this is his lot.

This indeed is a gift of God: everyone to whom God gives wealth and possessions, he also empowers him to enjoy them, to accept his lot, and to rejoice in the fruit of his toil.

For he does not remember the brief days of his life, for God keeps his heart preoccupied with enjoyment of life.

God gives a man wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires; yet God does not enable him to enjoy it—instead someone else ends up enjoying it. This is vanity—indeed, it is a grievous ill!

Even if a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years so that the days of his years are many, if his heart is not satisfied with his prosperity and he does not receive a proper burial, I deem the stillborn better than him.

For he comes into vanity and departs into darkness, and his name is shrouded in darkness.

All of a man's toil is for his mouth— yet his appetite is never satisfied.

For who knows what is good for a man in his life during the few days of his fleeting life, which are fleeting as a shadow? For who can tell anyone what will happen in the future under the sun?

Better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting, for death is the end of every person, and the living should take it to his heart.

I have seen all these things in my vain life: Sometimes a righteous man perishes in spite of his righteousness, and sometimes a wicked man lives a long life in spite of his evil.

Who is like the sage? Who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.

Do not be terrified of his presence! Go at once and do not delay when a matter is unpleasant, for he can do anything that he desires.

Whoever obeys his command will not suffer disaster. The wise mind knows the proper time and the right procedure.

Just as no one can control the wind to restrain the wind, so also no one can control the day of his death. Just as no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not deliver the wicked.

Although the sinner does evil a hundred times and prolongs his life, yet I also know that it will be good for those who fear God—because they fear his presence.

So I recommend enjoyment. For there is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to rejoice. This will accompany him in his toil the days of his life that God gives to him under the sun.

For man does not know his time. Just as fish are caught in a cruel net and like birds who are seized in a snare, so also humans are ensnared at a cruel time when it falls suddenly upon them.

Now, a poor wise man was found in it, and he delivered the city by his wisdom.

So I concluded that wisdom is better than might, yet the wisdom of the poor is despised, and his words are not heard.