Ecclesiastes 11–12

What a Wise Man Does

11Invest your money in foreign trade, and one of these days you will make a profit. ²Put your investments in several places—many places, in fact—because you never know what kind of bad luck you are going to have in this world.

³No matter in which direction a tree falls, it will lie where it fell. When the clouds are full, it rains. ⁴If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never sow anything and never harvest anything. ⁵God made everything, and you can no more understand what he does than you understand how new life begins in the womb of a pregnant woman. ⁶Do your sowing in the morning and in the evening, too. You never know whether it will all grow well or whether one sowing will do better than the other.

⁷It is good to be able to enjoy the pleasant light of day. ⁸Be grateful for every year you live. No matter how long you live, remember that you will be dead much longer. There is nothing at all to look forward to.

Advice to Young People

⁹Young people, enjoy your youth. Be happy while you are still young. Do what you want to do, and follow your heart’s desire. But remember that God is going to judge you for whatever you do.

¹⁰Don’t let anything worry you or cause you pain. You aren’t going to be young very long.

12So remember your Creatorⁿ while you are still young, before those dismal days and years come when you will say, “I don’t enjoy life.” ²That is when the light of the sun, the moon, and the stars will grow dim for you, and the rain clouds will never pass away. ³Then your arms, that have protected you, will tremble, and your legs, now strong, will grow weak. Your teeth will be too few to chew your food, and your eyes too dim to see clearly. ⁴Your ears will be deaf to the noise of the street. You will barely be able to hear the mill as it grinds or music as it plays, but even the song of a bird will wake you from sleep. ⁵You will be afraid of high places, and walking will be dangerous. Your hair will turn white; you will hardly be able to drag yourself along, and all desire will have gone.

We are going to our final resting place, and then there will be mourning in the streets. ⁶The silver chain will snap, and the golden lamp will fall and break; the rope at the well will break, and the water jar will be shattered. ⁷Our bodies will return to the dust of the earth, and the breath of life will go back to God, who gave it to us.

⁸Useless, useless, said the Philosopher. It is all useless.

The Summing Up

⁹But because the Philosopher was wise, he kept on teaching the people what he knew. He studied proverbs and honestly tested their truth. ¹⁰The Philosopher tried to find comforting words, but the words he wrote were honest. ¹¹The sayings of the wise are like the sharp sticks that shepherds use to guide sheep, and collected proverbs are as lasting as firmly driven nails. They have been given by God, the one Shepherd of us all.

¹²My son, there is something else to watch out for. There is no end to the writing of books, and too much study will wear you out.

¹³After all this, there is only one thing to say: have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that human beings were created for. ¹⁴God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret.