5:18. And every man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and
hath given him power to eat thereof, and to enjoy his portion, and to
rejoice of his labour: this is the gift of God.
5:19. For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God
entertaineth his heart with delight.
Ecclesiastes Chapter 6
The misery of the covetous man.
6:1. There is also another evil, which I have seen under the sun, and
that frequent among men:
6:2. A 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.
6:3. If 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.
6:4. For he came in vain, and goeth to darkness, and his name shall be
wholly forgotten.
6:5. He hath not seen the sun, nor known the distance of good and evil:
6:6. Although he lived two thousand years, and hath not enjoyed good
things: do not all make haste to one place?
6:7. All the labour of man is for his mouth, but his soul shall not be
filled.
6:8. What hath the wise man more than the fool? and what the poor man,
but to go thither, where there is life?
6:9. Better 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.
6:10. He that shall be, his name is already called: and it is known,
that he is a man, and cannot contend in judgment with him that is
stronger than himself.
6:11. There are many words that have much vanity in disputing.
Ecclesiastes Chapter 7
Prescriptions against worldly vanities: mortification, patience, and
seeking wisdom.
7:1. What needeth a man to seek things that are above him, whereas he
knoweth not what is profitable for him in his life, in all the days of
his pilgrimage, and the time that passeth like a shadow? Or who can
tell him what shall be after him under the sun?
7:2. A good name is better than precious ointments: and the day of
death than the day of one's birth.
7:3. It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to the house of
feasting: for in that we are put in mind of the end of all, and the
living thinketh what is to come.
7:4. Anger is better than laughter: because by the sadness of the
countenance the mind of the offender is corrected.
Anger. . .That is, correction, or just wrath and zeal against evil.
7:5. The heart of the wise is where there is mourning, and the heart of
fools where there is mirth.
7:6. It is better to be rebuked by a wise man, than to be deceived by
the flattery of fools.
7:7. For as the crackling of thorns burning under a pot, so is the
laughter of a fool: now this also is vanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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