Ecclesiastes - The Old Testament

¹ There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:

² A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.

³ A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.

⁴ A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

⁵ A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.

⁶ A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for discarding.

⁷ A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.

⁸ A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.

⁹ What do people gain from the efforts they make?

¹⁰ I contemplate the task that God gives humanity to labour at.

¹¹ All that he does is apt for its time; but although he has given us an awareness of the passage of time, we can grasp neither the beginning nor the end of what God does.

¹² I know there is no happiness for a human being except in pleasure and enjoyment through life.

¹³ And when we eat and drink and find happiness in all our achievements, this is a gift from God.

¹⁴ I know that whatever God does will be for ever. To this there is nothing to add, from this there is nothing to subtract, and the way God acts inspires dread.

¹⁵ What is, has been already, what will be, is already; God seeks out anyone who is persecuted.

¹⁶ Again I observe under the sun: crime is where justice should be, the criminal is where the upright should be.

¹⁷ And I think to myself: the upright and the criminal will both be judged by God, since there is a time for every thing and every action here.

¹⁸ I think to myself: where human beings are concerned, this is so that God can test them and show them that they are animals.

¹⁹ For the fate of human and the fate of animal is the same: as the one dies, so the other dies; both have the selfsame breath. Human is in no way better off than animal -- since all is futile.

²⁰ Everything goes to the same place, everything comes from the dust, everything returns to the dust.

²¹ Who knows if the human spirit mounts upward or if the animal spirit goes downward to the earth?

²² I see there is no contentment for a human being except happiness in achievement; such is the lot of a human beings. No one can tell us what will happen after we are gone.