Ecclesiastes 5
5
Don't Make Rash Promises
1Be careful about going to the Temple. It is better to go there to learn than to offer sacrifices as foolish people do, people who don't know right from wrong. 2Think before you speak, and don't make any rash promises to God. He is in heaven and you are on earth, so don't say any more than you have to. 3The more you worry, the more likely you are to have bad dreams, and the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something foolish. 4#Ps 66.13–14So when you make a promise to God, keep it as quickly as possible. He has no use for a fool. Do what you promise to do. 5Better not to promise at all than to make a promise and not keep it. 6Don't let your own words lead you into sin, so that you have to tell God's priest that you didn't mean it. Why make God angry with you? Why let him destroy what you have worked for? 7No matter how much you dream, how much useless work you do, or how much you talk, you must still stand in awe of God.
Life is Useless
8Don't be surprised when you see that the government oppresses the poor and denies them justice and their rights. Every official is protected by the one over him, and both are protected by still higher officials.
9Even a king depends on the harvest.#5.9 Verse 9 in Hebrew is unclear.
10If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want. It is useless. 11The richer you are, the more mouths you must feed. All you gain is the knowledge that you are rich. 12Workers may or may not have enough to eat, but at least they can get a good night's sleep. The rich, however, have so much that they stay awake worrying.
13Here is a terrible thing that I have seen in this world: people save up their money for a time when they may need it,#5.13 for… it; or to their own hurt. 14and then lose it all in some unlucky deal and end up with nothing left to pass on to their children. 15#Job 1.21; Ps 49.17; 1 Tim 6.7We leave this world just as we entered it — with nothing. In spite of all our work there is nothing we can take with us. 16It isn't right! We go just as we came. We labour, trying to catch the wind, and what do we get? 17We have to live our lives in darkness and grief,#5.17 Some ancient translations in darkness and grief; Hebrew eating in darkness. worried, angry, and sick.
18This is what I have found out: the best thing anyone can do is to eat and drink and enjoy what he has worked for during the short life that God has given him; this is man's fate. 19If God gives a man wealth and property and lets him enjoy them, he should be grateful and enjoy what he has worked for. It is a gift from God. 20Since God has allowed him to be happy, he will not worry too much about how short life is.
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Good News Bible with Deuterocanonicals/Apocrypha. Scripture taken from the Good News Bible (r) (Today's English Version Second Edition, UK/British Edition). Copyright © 1992 British & Foreign Bible Society. Used by permission.
Ecclesiastes 5
5
1Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God#GodHebrew: Elohim and draw near to hear, rather than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they know not that they do evil. 2Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God#GodHebrew: Elohim for God#GodHebrew: Elohim is in the heavens, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few. 3For a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice through a multitude of words.
4When thou vowest a vow unto God#GodHebrew: Elohim defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed. 5Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. 6Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an inadvertence. Wherefore should God#GodHebrew: Elohim be wroth at thy voice, and destroy the work of thy hands? 7For in the multitude of dreams are vanities; so with many words: but fear God#GodHebrew: Elohim 8If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter; for a higher than the high is watching, and there are higher than they.
9Moreover the earth is every way profitable: the king himself is dependent upon the field. 10He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This also is vanity. 11When goods increase, they are increased that eat them; and what profit is there to the owner thereof, except the beholding of them with his eyes? 12The sleep of the labourer is sweet, whether he have eaten little or much; but the fulness of the rich doth not suffer him to sleep. 13There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt; 14or those riches perish by some evil circumstance, and if he have begotten a son, there is nothing in his hand. 15As he came forth from his mother's womb, naked shall he go away again as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. 16And this also is a grievous evil, that in all points as he came so doth he go away, and what profit hath he, in having laboured for the wind? 17All his days also he eateth in darkness, and hath much vexation, and sickness, and irritation.
18Behold what I have seen good and comely: it is to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labour wherewith man laboureth under the sun, all the days of his life which God#GodHebrew: Elohim hath given him: for that is his portion. 19Every man also to whom God#GodHebrew: Elohim hath given riches and wealth, and power to eat thereof, and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labour: that is a gift of God#GodHebrew: Elohim 20For he will not much remember the days of his life, because God#GodHebrew: Elohim answereth him with the joy of his heart.
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First published in 1890. This edition is maintained by the British and Foreign Bible Society.