10 Bible Verses about Enjoyment, Lack Of
Most Relevant Verses
You will be pledged to marry a wife, but another man will be intimate with her [before you]; you will build a house, but you will not live in it; you will plant a vineyard, but you will not use its fruit.
“He does not look at the rivers,
The flowing streams of honey and butter [to enjoy his wealth].
“He gives back what he has labored for and attained
And cannot swallow it [down to enjoy it];
As to the riches of his labor,
He cannot even enjoy them.
“For he has oppressed and neglected the poor;
He has violently taken away houses which he did not build.
“One dies in his full strength,
Being wholly at ease and quiet and satisfied;
His pails are full of milk [his sides are filled out with fat],
And the marrow of his bones is moist,
Whereas another dies with a bitter soul,
Never even tasting pleasure or good fortune.
If a man fathers a hundred children and lives many years, however many they may be, but his soul is not satisfied with good things and he is not respected and is not given a proper burial [he is not laid to rest in the sepulcher of his fathers], then I say, “Better the miscarriage than he, for the miscarriage comes in futility (in vain) and passes into obscurity; and its name is covered in obscurity. It has not seen the sun nor had any knowledge; yet it has more rest and is better off than he. read more.
Even if the other man lives a thousand years twice over and yet has seen no good and experienced no enjoyment—do not both go to one place [the grave]?”
There was a certain man—without a dependent, having neither a child nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “For whom do I labor and deprive myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity (a wisp of smoke, self-conceit); yes, it is a painful effort and an unhappy task.
For to the person who pleases Him God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who pleases God. This too is vanity and chasing after the wind.
For we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about our trouble in [the west coast province of] Asia [Minor], how we were utterly weighed down, beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life [itself].
I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax;
It is melted [by anguish] within me.
Because of the surpassing greatness and extraordinary nature of the revelations [which I received from God], for this reason, to keep me from thinking of myself as important, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan, to torment and harass me—to keep me from exalting myself!
