Ecclesiastes

Chapter 3

1. There is an appointed time for everything,
and a time for every affair under
the heavens.

2 . A time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.

3. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time
to tear down, and a time to build.

4 . A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.

5. A time to scatter stones, and a time to
gather them; a time to embrace, and a time
to be far from embraces.

6 . A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time
to keep, and a time to cast away.

7 . A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time
to be silent, and a time to speak.

8. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time
of war, and a time of peace.

9. What advantage has the worker from his toil?

10 . I have considered the task which God has
appointed for men to be busied about.

11. He has made everything appropriate to its
time, and has put the timeless into their hearts,
without men's ever discovering, from beginning to
end, the work which God has done.

12 . I recognized that there is nothing better
than to be glad and to do well during life.

13. For every man, moreover, to eat and drink
and enjoy the fruit of all his labor is a gift of God.

14. I recognized that whatever God does will
endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking
from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered.

15 . What now is has already been; what is to be,
already is; and God restores what would otherwise
be displaced.

16. And still under the sun in the judgment place
I saw wickedness, and in the seat of justice, iniquity.

17. And I said to myself, both the just and the
wicked God will judge, since there is a time for
every affair and on every work a judgment.

18. I said to myself: As for the children of men,
it is God's way of testing them and of showing
that they are in themselves like beasts.

19. For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the
one dies as well as the other. Both have the same
life-breath, and man has no advantage over the
beast; but all is vanity.

20. Both go to the same place; both were made
from the dust, and to the dust they both return.

21. Who knows if the life-breath of the children
of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts
goes earthward?

22. And I saw that there is nothing better for a
man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot.
Who will let him see what is to come after him?