Ecclesiastes 6
6
1I have seen something else unfair here on earth. It causes serious problems for people. 2God gives some people great wealth, riches and honor. They have everything they want. But God does not let them enjoy such things. Someone else enjoys them instead. This is unfair and senseless. 3It is sad when a person can’t enjoy the good things God gives him. Such a person might have 100 children. He might live a long time. But what good is it if he can’t enjoy the good God gives him? I say a baby who is born dead is better off than he is. 4It is useless for such a baby to be born. It ends up in the darkness of the grave without even a name. 5That baby never saw the sun. It never knew anything. But it finds more rest than the person who never gets to enjoy the good things God gives him. 6Even if he lives 2,000 years, it is sad if a person can’t enjoy the good things God gives him. After all, both he and the baby born dead go to the same place—the grave.
7A person works just to feed himself.
But he never seems to get enough to eat.
8In this way a wise man
is no better off than a foolish person.
Then, too, it does a poor man little good
to know how to get along in life.
9So it is better to be happy with what you have
than always to be wanting more.
Always wanting more is useless—
like chasing the wind.
Who Can Understand God’s Plan?
10Everything that happens was planned long ago.
A man is only what he was created to be.
It is useless to argue with God about it.
This is because God is more powerful than man is.
11The more you argue,
the more useless it is.
You gain nothing at all by arguing.
12A person has only a few days of life on the earth. His short life passes like a shadow. And who knows what is best for him while he lives? Who can tell him what will happen after his time on earth?
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Copyright © 2015 by Tommy Nelson™, a Division of Thomas Nelson, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Ecclesiastes 6
6
1 There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy on men: 2a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honour, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.
3 If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial, I say that a stillborn child is better than he; 4for it comes in vanity, and departs in darkness, and its name is covered with darkness. 5Moreover it has not seen the sun nor known it. This has rest rather than the other. 6Yes, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet fails to enjoy good, don’t all go to one place? 7All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled. 8For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living? 9Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind. 10Whatever has been, its name was given long ago; and it is known what man is; neither can he contend with him who is mightier than he. 11For there are many words that create vanity. What does that profit man? 12For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?
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