Study Desk

So I commended the dead, who have already died, more than the living, who are still alive.

Do not be hasty to speak, and do not be impulsive to make a speech before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.

Just as dreams accompany much labor, so also a fool’s voice comes with many words.

For many dreams bring futility, so do many words. Therefore, fear God.

That wealth was lost in a bad venture, so when he fathered a son, he was empty-handed.

As he came from his mother’s womb, so he will go again, naked as he came; he will take nothing for his efforts that he can carry in his hands.

This too is a sickening tragedy: exactly as he comes, so he will go. What does the one gain who struggles for the wind?

God gives a person riches, wealth, and honor so that he lacks nothing of all he desires for himself, but God does not allow him to enjoy them. Instead, a stranger will enjoy them. This is futile and a sickening tragedy.

for like the crackling of burning 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: God has made the one as well as the other, so that no one can discover anything that will come after him.

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

Everything is the same for everyone: There is one 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 sacrifice. As it is for the good, so also it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who takes an oath, so also for the one who fears an oath.

For certainly no one knows his time: like fish caught in a cruel net or like birds caught in a trap, so people are trapped in an evil time as it suddenly falls on them.

Just as you don’t know the path of the wind,or how bones develop in the womb of a pregnant woman,so also you don’t know the work of God who makes everything.

So remember your Creator in the days of your youth:

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

Like an apricot tree among the trees of the forest,so is my love among the young men.I delight to sit in his shade,and his fruit is sweet to my taste.

So humanity is brought low,and each person is humbled.Do not forgive them!

So now, residents of Jerusalemand men of Judah,please judge between meand my vineyard.

Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes strawand as dry grass shrivels in the flame,so their roots will become like something rottenand their blossoms will blow away like dust,for they have rejectedthe instruction of the Lord of Armies,and they have despisedthe word of the Holy One of Israel.