Ecclesiastes 6
6
Wealth Does Not Bring Happiness
1I have seen another thing in this life that is not fair and is very hard to understand. 2God gives some people great wealth, riches, and honor. They have everything they need and everything they could ever want. But then God does not let them enjoy those things. Some stranger comes and takes everything. This is a very bad and senseless thing.
3A man might live a long time and have 100 children. But if he is not satisfied with those good things, and if no one remembers him after his death, I say that a baby who dies at birth is better off than that man. 4It is senseless when a baby is born dead. The baby is quickly buried in a dark grave, without even a name. 5The baby never saw the sun and never knew anything. But the baby finds more rest than the man who never enjoyed what God gave him. 6He might live 2000 years. But if he does not enjoy life, then the baby who was born dead has found the easiest way to the same end.#6:6 then the baby … the same end Or “Isn’t it true that all go to the same place?”
7People work and work to feed themselves, but they are never satisfied. 8In the same way a wise person is no better than a fool is. It is better to be a poor person who knows how to accept life as it is. 9It is better to be happy with what you have than to always want more and more. Always wanting more and more is useless. It is like trying to catch the wind.#6:9 Or “Having what you can see is better than chasing after the things you want. This is also like trying to catch the wind.”
10-11You are only what you were created to be—a human, and it is useless to argue about it. People cannot argue with God about this because he is more powerful than they are, and a long argument will not change that fact.
12Who knows what is best for people during their short life on earth? Their life passes like a shadow. No one can tell them what will happen later.
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© 1987, 2004 Bible League International
Ecclesiastes 6
6
1There is also another evil, which I have seen under the sun, and that frequent among men:
2A man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and honour, and his soul wanteth nothing of all that he desireth: yet God doth not give him power to eat thereof, but a stranger shall eat it up. This is vanity and a great misery.
3If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, and attain to a great age, and his soul make no use of the goods of his substance, and he be without burial: of this man I pronounce, that the untimely born is better than he.
4For he came in vain, and goeth to darkness, and his name shall be wholly forgotten.
5He hath not seen the sun, nor known the distance of good and evil:
6Although he lived two thousand years, and hath not enjoyed good things: do not all make haste to one place?
7All the labour of man is for his mouth, but his soul shall not be filled.
8What hath the wise man more than the fool? and what the poor man, but to go thither, where there is life?
9Better it is to see what thou mayst desire, than to desire that which thou canst not know. But this also is vanity, and presumption of spirit.
10He that shall be, his name is already called: and it is known, that he is man, and cannot contend in judgment with him that is stronger than himself.
11There are many words that have much vanity in disputing.
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An historical text maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.