Ecclesiastes 12:5–6

¹³If I wait, the grave is mine house: I have made my bed in the darkness.

¹⁷¶ Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Consider ye, and call for the mourning women, that they may come; and send for cunning women, that they may come:

¹⁸And let them make haste, and take up a wailing for us, that our eyes may run down with tears, and our eyelids gush out with waters.

¹⁹For a voice of wailing is heard out of Zion, How are we spoiled! we are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.

²⁰Yet hear the word of the Lord, O ye women, and let your ear receive the word of his mouth, and teach your daughters wailing, and every one her neighbour lamentation.

²³For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.

³¹The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.

³And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Egyptians mourned for him threescore and ten days.

⁴And when the days of his mourning were past, Joseph spake unto the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying,

⁵My father made me swear, saying, Lo, I die: in my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray thee, and bury my father, and I will come again.

⁶And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury thy father, according as he made thee swear.

⁷¶ And Joseph went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

⁸And all the house of Joseph, and his brethren, and his father’s house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen.

⁹And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company.

¹⁰And they came to the threshingfloor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days.

¹⁰With us are both the grayheaded and very aged men, much elder than thy father.

³²¶ Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.

¹⁰For he seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish, and leave their wealth to others.

¹¹Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places to all generations; they call their lands after their own names.

¹²Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish.

¹³This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings. Selah.

¹⁴Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling.

¹⁸Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.

¹⁰Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

³⁸And he said, My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and he is left alone: if mischief befall him by the way in the which ye go, then shall ye bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

²⁹And if ye take this also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.

³¹It shall come to pass, when he seeth that the lad is not with us, that he will die: and thy servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant our father with sorrow to the grave.

²⁷And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

⁴And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.

¹¹¶ Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.

³⁸And he cometh to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and seeth the tumult, and them that wept and wailed greatly.

³⁹And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth.

²⁹The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.

²And said unto me, What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof:

³And two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof.