Ecclesiastes 6:2–7

¹⁹Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.

¹⁴From men which are thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.

⁷Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.

¹³And I have also given thee that which thou hast not asked, both riches, and honour: so that there shall not be any among the kings like unto thee all thy days.

²Our inheritance is turned to strangers, our houses to aliens.

⁹Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.

¹⁰Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.

¹¹They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

¹²They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.

¹³They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.

¹⁴Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

¹⁵What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?

¹⁸O thou king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar thy father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honour:

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

²⁰But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

⁶Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

²⁵And the Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him such royal majesty as had not been on any king before him in Israel.

²⁸And he died in a good old age, full of days, riches, and honour: and Solomon his son reigned in his stead.

¹¹And God said to Solomon, Because this was in thine heart, and thou hast not asked riches, wealth, or honour, nor the life of thine enemies, neither yet hast asked long life; but hast asked wisdom and knowledge for thyself, that thou mayest judge my people, over whom I have made thee king:

³³The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway:

⁴³The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.

⁷For the Lord thy God bringeth thee into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills;

⁸A land of wheat, and barley, and vines, and fig trees, and pomegranates; a land of oil olive, and honey;

⁹A land wherein thou shalt eat bread without scarceness, thou shalt not lack any thing in it; a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass.

¹⁰When thou hast eaten and art full, then thou shalt bless the Lord thy God for the good land which he hath given thee.

⁴I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards:

⁵I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kind of fruits:

⁶I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees:

⁷I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me:

⁸I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments, and that of all sorts.

⁹So I was great, and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me.

¹⁰And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy; for my heart rejoiced in all my labour: and this was my portion of all my labour.

⁴¶ Again, I considered all travail, and every right work, that for this a man is envied of his neighbour. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit.

⁸There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he hath neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labour; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither saith he, For whom do I labour, and bereave my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a sore travail.

⁹Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not: yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.

¹⁰When ye go, ye shall come unto a people secure, and to a large land: for God hath given it into your hands; a place where there is no want of any thing that is in the earth.

¹⁶And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?

¹⁶Or as an hidden untimely birth I had not been; as infants which never saw light.

³⁵And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands.

³Yea, better is he than both they, which hath not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

¹⁹He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

⁹And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

¹⁹But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.

²⁰Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.

⁵And of all my sons, (for the Lord hath given me many sons,) he hath chosen Solomon my son to sit upon the throne of the kingdom of the Lord over Israel.

²⁰¶ And Eli blessed Elkanah and his wife, and said, The Lord give thee seed of this woman for the loan which is lent to the Lord. And they went unto their own home.

²¹And the Lord visited Hannah, so that she conceived, and bare three sons and two daughters. And the child Samuel grew before the Lord.

²¹And Rehoboam loved Maachah the daughter of Absalom above all his wives and his concubines: (for he took eighteen wives, and threescore concubines; and begat twenty and eight sons, and threescore daughters.)

¹AND Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters, and sent to Samaria, unto the rulers of Jezreel, to the elders, and to them that brought up Ahab’s children, saying,

¹⁷All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.

¹⁸¶ Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it is his portion.

¹⁹Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.

¹¹And Haman told them of the glory of his riches, and the multitude of his children, and all the things wherein the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king.

¹⁰So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.

¹⁴And the king commanded it so to be done: and the decree was given at Shushan; and they hanged Haman’s ten sons.

¹⁵For the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day also of the month Adar, and slew three hundred men at Shushan; but on the prey they laid not their hand.

⁵And he lifted up his eyes, and saw the women and the children; and said, Who are those with thee? And he said, The children which God hath graciously given thy servant.

³⁰Therefore thus saith the Lord of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.

²And they shall spread them before the sun, and the moon, and all the host of heaven, whom they have loved, and whom they have served, and after whom they have walked, and whom they have sought, and whom they have worshipped: they shall not be gathered, nor be buried; they shall be for dung upon the face of the earth.

²⁴The Son of man goeth as it is written of him: but woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born.

⁶Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.

⁴As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.

⁵Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

⁸As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

¹³Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

¹MAN that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.

¹⁰Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, nor hid sorrow from mine eyes.

¹¹Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?

¹²Why did the knees prevent me? or why the breasts that I should suck?

¹³For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept: then had I been at rest,

⁸As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away: like the untimely birth of a woman, that they may not see the sun.

⁷For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

⁸Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.

⁹For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

²⁰All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

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

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

⁷Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

³¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

²³And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:

²⁴And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

⁵And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

²⁰There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.

²²They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.

⁶For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.

²¹And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

⁷O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.

¹²What man is he that desireth life, and loveth many days, that he may see good?

⁶There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us.

⁷Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.

²⁷Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.

²⁶He that laboureth laboureth for himself; for his mouth craveth it of him.

⁶But godliness with contentment is great gain.

⁷For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.

⁸And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

²⁵Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

¹⁰He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.

³¶ If a man beget an hundred children, and live many years, so that the days of his years be many, and his soul be not filled with good, and also that he have no burial; I say, that an untimely birth is better than he.

¹⁹And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

¹⁷And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

¹⁸Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

¹⁹In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.