Ecclesiastes 3
3
A Time for Everything
1There is a right time for everything, and everything on earth will happen at the right time.
2There is a time to be born
and a time to die.
There is a time to plant
and a time to pull up plants.
3There is a time to kill
and a time to heal.
There is a time to destroy
and a time to build.
4There is a time to cry
and a time to laugh.
There is a time to be sad
and a time to dance with joy.
5There is a time to throw weapons down
and a time to pick them up.#3:5 Literally, “There is a time to throw stones away and a time to gather stones.”
There is a time to hug someone
and a time to stop holding so tightly.
6There is a time to look for something
and a time to consider it lost.
There is a time to keep things
and a time to throw things away.
7There is a time to tear cloth
and a time to sew it.
There is a time to be silent
and a time to speak.
8There is a time to love
and a time to hate.
There is a time for war
and a time for peace.
God Controls His World
9Do people really gain anything from their hard work? 10I saw all the hard work God gave us to do. 11God gave us the ability to think about his world,#3:11 the ability … world Or “a desire to know the future.” but we can never completely understand everything he does. And yet, he does everything at just the right time.
12I learned that the best thing for people to do is to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. 13God wants everyone to eat, drink, and enjoy their work. These are gifts from God.
14I learned that anything God does will continue forever. People cannot add anything to the work of God, and they cannot take anything away from it. God did this so that people would respect him. 15What happened in the past has happened, and what will happen in the future will happen. But God wants to help those who have been treated badly.#3:15 Or “What happens now also happened in the past. What happens in the future has also happened before. God makes things happen again and again.”
16I also saw these things in this life#3:16 in this life Literally, “under the sun.”: I saw that the courts should be filled with goodness and fairness, but there is evil there now. 17So I said to myself, “God has planned a time for everything, and he has planned a time to judge everything people do. He will judge good people and bad people.”
Are People Like Animals?
18I thought about what people do to each other. And I said to myself, “God wants people to see that they are like animals. 19The same thing happens to animals and to people—they die. People and animals have the same ‘breath.’#3:19 breath Or “spirit.” Is a dead animal different from a dead person? It is all so senseless! 20The bodies of people and animals end the same way. They came from the earth, and, in the end, they will go back to the earth. 21Who knows what happens to a person’s spirit? Who knows if a human’s spirit goes up to God while an animal’s spirit goes down into the ground?”
22So I saw that the best thing people can do is to enjoy what they do, because that is all they have. Besides, no one can help another person see what will happen in the future.
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Ecclesiastes 3
3
1All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven.
2A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
3A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build.
4A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
5A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather. A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
6A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away.
7A time to rend, and a time to sew. A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
8A time of love, and a time of hatred. A time of war, and a time of peace.
9What hath man more of his labour?
10I have seen the trouble, which God hath given the sons of men to be exercised in it.
11He hath made all things good in their time, and hath delivered the world to their consideration, so that man cannot find out the work which God hath made from the beginning to the end.
12And I have known that there was no better thing than to rejoice, and to do well in this life.
13For every man that eateth and drinketh, and seeth good of his labour, this is the gift of God.
14I have learned that all the works which God hath made, continue for ever: we cannot add any thing, nor take away from those things which God hath made that he may be feared.
15That which hath been made, the same continueth: the things that shall be, have already been: and God restoreth that which is past.
16I saw under the sun in the place of judgment wickedness, and in the place of justice iniquity.
17And I said in my heart: God shall judge both the just and the wicked, and then shall be the time of every thing.
18I said in my heart concerning the sons of men, that God would prove them, and shew them to be like beasts.
19Therefore the death of man, and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dieth, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man hath nothing more than beast: all things are subject to vanity.
20And all things go to one place: of earth they were made, and into earth they return together.
21Who knoweth if the spirit of the children of Adam ascend upward, and if the spirit of the beasts descend downward?
22And I have found that nothing is better than for a man to rejoice in his work, and that this is his portion. For who shall bring him to know the things that shall be after him?
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.