For God gives to a man that is good in his sight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he gives the work of gathering and heaping up, only that he may give to him that is good before God. This also is vanity and grasping of the wind.

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

I have seen the task, which God has given to the sons of men to be occupied in it.

He has made every thing beautiful in its time: also he has put eternity in men's hearts, so that no man can find out the work that God does from the beginning to the end.

I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God.

I know that, whatsoever God does, it shall be forever: nothing can be added to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God does it, that men should fear before him.

That which has been is now; and that which is to be has already been; and God requires that which is past.

I said in my heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time for every purpose and for every work.

I said in my heart concerning the condition of the sons of men, that God might reveal them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

There is one alone, and there is not a second; yea, he has neither child nor brother: yet is there no end of all his labor; neither is his eye satisfied with riches; neither says he, For whom do I labor, and deprive my soul of good? This is also vanity, yea, it is a heavy travail.

Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor.

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

Be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and you upon earth: therefore let your words be few.

When you vow a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools: pay that which you have vowed.

Permit not your mouth to cause your flesh to sin; neither say before the angel, that it was an error: why should God be angry at your voice, and destroy the work of your hands?

For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also many vanities: but you fear God.

When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: so what good is there to the owners, except the beholding of them with their eyes?

Behold that which I have seen: it is good and fitting for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he takes under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him: for this is his lot.

Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to accept his lot, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God.

For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God keeps him busy with the joy of his heart.

A man to whom God has given riches, wealth, and honor, so that he wants nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him not power to eat of it, but a stranger eats it: this is vanity, and it is an evil affliction.

If a man begets a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, and his soul is not filled with good, and also that he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn birth is better than he.

Yea, though he lives a thousand years twice over, yet he has seen no good: do not all go to one place?

For who knows what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? for who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?

A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one's birth.

Wisdom is good with an inheritance: and by it there is profit to them that see the sun.

Consider the work of God: for who can make that straight, which he has made crooked?

In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also has set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing that will come after him.

It is good that you should take hold of this; yea, also from this withhold not your hand: for he that fears God shall come forth of them all.

For there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not.

And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands are fetters: whosoever pleases God shall escape from her; but the sinner shall be taken by her.

Lo, this only have I found, that God has made man upright; but they have sought out many devices.

I counsel you to keep the king's commandment, and that for the sake of your oath to God.

Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, who fear before him:

But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he fears not before God.

Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him in his labor all the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun.

Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labors to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea moreover; though a wise man thinks to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.

For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knows either love or hatred by all that is before them.

All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrifices, and to him that sacrifices not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that swears, as he that fears an oath.

Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God now accepts your works.

The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that rules among fools.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroys much good.

As you know not what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so you know not the works of God who makes all.

In the morning sow your seed, and in the evening withhold not your hand: for you know not which shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both alike shall be good.

Rejoice, O 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.

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

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

For God shall bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Because of the fragrance of your good ointments your name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love you.

The fig tree puts forth its green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Your neck is as a tower of ivory; your eyes like the pools of Heshbon, by the gate of Bathrabbim: your nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looks toward Damascus.

Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms have opened, and the pomegranates are in bloom: there will I give you my loves.

Hear the word of the LORD, you rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah.

Learn to do good; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.

If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land:

And many people shall go and say, Come, and let us 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 shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

What do you mean that you beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? says the Lord GOD of hosts.

But the LORD of hosts shall be exalted in justice, and God who is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

But yet in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be laid waste: as a terebinth tree, and as an oak, whose stump remains, when they are cut down: so the holy seed shall be its stump.

And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah.

Thus says the Lord GOD, It shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass.

Ask a sign of the LORD your God; ask it either in the depth, or in the height above.

And he said, Hear you now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will you weary my God also?

Curds and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.

For before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, the land that you dread shall be forsaken by both her kings.

Take counsel together, and it shall come to nothing; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.

And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that are mediums, and unto wizards that whisper, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? rather than the dead on behalf of the living?

And they shall pass through it, hardpressed and hungry: and it shall come to pass, that when they shall be hungry, they shall be enraged, and curse their king and their God, and look upward.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones: the sycamores are cut down, but we will replace them into cedars.

Therefore the LORD will cut off from Israel head and tail, palm branch and reed, in one day.

Yet he means not so, neither does his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations, not a few.

The remnant shall return, even the remnant of Jacob, unto the mighty God.

For the Lord GOD of hosts shall make the destruction decreed, in the midst of all the land.

Therefore thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, O my people that dwell in Zion, be not afraid of the Assyrian: he shall strike you with a rod, and shall lift up his staff against you, after the manner of Egypt.

And he shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall before the mighty one.

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off: Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not harass Ephraim.

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation.

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, who did weaken the nations!

For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the farthest sides of the north:

For I will rise up against them, says the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, says the LORD.

Wail, O gate; cry, O city; you, all of Philistia, are dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.

He has gone up to the temple, and to Dibon, the high places, to weep: Moab shall wail over Nebo, and over Medeba: on all their heads shall be baldness, and every beard cut off.

Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in its outmost fruitful branches, says the LORD God of Israel.

Because you have forgotten the God of your salvation, and have not been mindful of the rock of your strength, therefore shall you plant pleasant plants, and shall set it with imported seedlings:

The nations shall rush like the rushing of many waters: but God shall rebuke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind.

For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.

O my threshing, and the grain of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

And the remainder of the number of archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the LORD God of Israel has spoken it.

For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains.

And it shall come to pass, that your choicest valleys shall be full of chariots, and the horsemen shall set themselves in array at the gate.

And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call for weeping, and for mourning, and for baldness, and for girding with sackcloth:

And it was revealed in my ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till you die, says the Lord GOD of hosts.

Thus says the Lord GOD of hosts, Go, get you unto this steward, even unto Shebna, who is over the house, and say,

In that day, says the LORD of hosts, shall the peg that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the LORD has spoken it.