Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.

When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes),

For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hatred, man doesn't know it; all is before them.

For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

Go your way?eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.

For man also doesn't know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.

If the spirit of the ruler rises up against you, do not leave your place; for gentleness lays great offenses to rest.

If the serpent bites before it is charmed, then is there no profit for the charmer's tongue.

The labor of fools wearies every one of them; for he doesn't know how to go to the city.

Blessed are you, land, when your king is the son of nobles, and your princes eat in due season, for strength, and not for drunkenness.

A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes the life glad; and money is the answer for all things.

Do not curse the king, no, not in your thoughts; and do not curse the rich in your bedchamber: for a bird of the sky may carry your voice, and that which has wings may tell the matter.

Cast your bread on the waters; for you shall find it after many days.

Give a portion to seven, yes, even to eight; for you do not know what evil will be on the earth.

In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening do not withhold your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, whether this or that, or whether they both will be equally good.

Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the sun.

Yes, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity.

Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth; for your love is better than wine.

Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; For why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?

I have compared you, my love, to a steed in Pharaoh's chariots.

Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples; For I am faint with love.

For, behold, the winter is past. The rain is over and gone.

My dove in the clefts of the rock, In the hiding places of the mountainside, Let me see your face. Let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.

Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards; for our vineyards are in blossom.

They all handle the sword, and are expert in war. Every man has his sword on his thigh, because of fear in the night.

Your neck is like David's tower built for an armory, whereon a thousand shields hang, all the shields of the mighty men.

I was asleep, but my heart was awake. It is the voice of my beloved who knocks: "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled; for my head is filled with dew, and my hair with the dampness of the night."

My beloved thrust his hand in through the latch opening. My heart pounded for him.

I rose up to open for my beloved. My hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the lock.

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved left; and had gone away. My heart went out when he spoke. I looked for him, but I did not find him. I called him, but he did not answer.

Turn away your eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats, that lie along the side of Gilead.

How beautiful and how pleasant you are, love, for delights.

Your mouth like the best wine, that goes down smoothly for my beloved, gliding through the lips of those who are asleep.

The mandrakes give forth fragrance. At our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, new and old, which I have stored up for you, my beloved.

Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal on your arm; for love is strong as death. Jealousy is as cruel as Sheol. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a very flame of the LORD.

Many waters can't quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man would give all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly scorned.

We have a little sister. She has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister in the day when she is to be spoken for?

Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He leased out the vineyard to keepers. Each was to bring a thousand shekels of silver for its fruit.

My own vineyard is before me. The thousand are for you, Solomon; two hundred for those who tend its fruit.

Hear, heavens, and listen, earth; for the LORD has spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

Your country is desolate. Your cities are burned with fire. Strangers devour your land in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

Learn to do well. Seek justice. Relieve the oppressed. Judge the fatherless. Plead for the widow."

but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword; for the mouth of the LORD has spoken it."

For they shall be ashamed of the oaks which you have desired, and you shall be confounded for the gardens that you have chosen.

For you shall be as an oak whose leaf fades, and as a garden that has no water.

And many peoples shall come and say, "Come, let's go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths." For out of Zion the law shall go forth, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

For you have forsaken your people, the house of Jacob, because they are filled from the east, with those who practice divination like the Philistines, and they clasp hands with the children of foreigners.

For there will be a day of the LORD of hosts for all that is proud and haughty, and for all that is lifted up; and it shall be brought low:

For all the cedars of Lebanon, that are high and lifted up, for all the oaks of Bashan,

For all the high mountains, for all the hills that are lifted up,

For every lofty tower, for every fortified wall,

For all the ships of Tarshish, and for all pleasant imagery.

In that day, men shall cast away their idols of silver, and their idols of gold, which have been made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats;

Stop trusting in man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for of what account is he?

For behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, takes away from Jerusalem and from Judah supply and support, the whole supply of bread, and the whole supply of water;

In that day he will cry out, saying, I will not be a healer; for in my house is neither bread nor clothing. You shall not make me ruler of the people.

For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen; because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.

The look of their faces testify against them. They parade their sin like Sodom. They do not hide it. Woe to their soul. For they have brought disaster upon themselves.

Tell the righteous "Good." For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

Woe to the wicked. Disaster is upon them; for the deeds of his hands will be paid back to him.

As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. My people, those who lead you cause you to err, and destroy the way of your paths.

The LORD will create over the whole habitation of Mount Zion, and over her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy.

There will be a pavilion for a shade in the daytime from the heat, and for a refuge and for a shelter from storm and from rain.

Let me sing for my well beloved a song of my beloved about his vineyard. My beloved had a vineyard on a very fruitful hill.

He dug it up, gathered out its stones, planted it with the choicest vine, built a tower in its midst, and also cut out a winepress therein. He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Why, when I looked for it to yield grapes, did it yield wild grapes?

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for justice, but, behold, oppression; for righteousness, but, behold, a cry of distress.

For ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and a homer of seed shall yield an ephah."

Therefore my people go into captivity for lack of knowledge. Their honorable men are famished, and their multitudes are parched with thirst.

Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.

who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice for the innocent.

Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.

Therefore the LORD's anger burns against his people, and he has stretched out his hand against them, and has struck them. The mountains tremble, and their dead bodies are as refuse in the midst of the streets. For all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is still stretched out.

He will lift up a banner to the nations from far, and he will whistle for them from the end of the earth. Behold, they will come speedily and swiftly.

Then I said, "Woe is me. For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."

I heard the Lord's voice, saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here I am. Send me."

And the LORD has removed men far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

Tell him, 'Be careful, and keep calm. Do not be afraid, neither let your heart be faint because of these two tails of smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin and Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

For the head of Syria is Damascus, and the head of Damascus is Rezin; and within sixty-five years Ephraim shall be broken in pieces, so that it shall not be a people;

He said, "Listen now, house of David: Is it not enough for you to try the patience of men, that you will try the patience of my God also?

For before the child knows to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land whose two kings you abhor shall be forsaken.

It will happen in that day that the LORD will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.

and it shall happen, that because of the abundance of milk which they shall give he shall eat butter: for everyone will eat butter and honey that is left in the midst of the land.

It will happen in that day that every place where there were a thousand vines at a thousand silver shekels, shall be for briers and thorns.

All the hills that were cultivated with the hoe, you shall not come there for fear of briers and thorns; but it shall be for the sending forth of oxen, and for the treading of sheep."

The LORD said to me, "Take a large tablet, and write on it with a man's pen, 'For Maher Shalal Hash Baz;'

and I will take for myself faithful witnesses to testify: Uriah the priest, and Zechariah the son of Jeberechiah."

For before the child knows how to say, 'My father,' and, 'My mother,' the riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria will be carried away by the king of Assyria."

Make an uproar, you peoples, and be broken in pieces. Listen, all you from far countries: dress for battle, and be shattered. Dress for battle, and be shattered.

Take counsel together, and it will be brought to nothing; speak the word, and it will not stand: for God is with us."

For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me not to walk in the way of this people, saying,

"Do not say, 'A conspiracy.' concerning all about which this people say, 'A conspiracy.' neither fear their threats, nor be in dread.

The LORD of hosts is who you must regard as holy. He is the one you must fear. He is the one you must dread.