Ecclesiastes
5:1 Keep thy foot when thou goest 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.
5:2 Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter
any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth:
therefore let thy words be few.
5:3 For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice
is known by multitude of words.
5:4 When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no
pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.
5:5 Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow
and not pay.
5:6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before
the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy
voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
5:7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers
vanities: but fear thou God.
5:8 If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of
judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he
that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than
they.
5:9 Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served
by the field.
5:10 He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that
loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
5:11 When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is
there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their
eyes?
5:12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much:
but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
5:13 There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches
kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
5:14 But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and
there is nothing in his hand.
5:15 As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he
came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in
his hand.
5:16 And 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?
5:17 All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and
wrath with his sickness.
5:18 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.
5:19 Every 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.
5:20 For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God
answereth him in the joy of his heart.
