Ecclesiastes 3:1–13

A Time for Everything

3Everything that happens in this world happens at the time God chooses.

²He sets the time for birth and the time for death,

the time for planting and the time for pulling up,

³the time for killing and the time for healing,

the time for tearing down and the time for building.

⁴He sets the time for sorrow and the time for joy,

the time for mourning and the time for dancing,

⁵the time for making love and the time for not making love,

the time for kissing and the time for not kissing.

⁶He sets the time for finding and the time for losing,

the time for saving and the time for throwing away,

⁷the time for tearing and the time for mending,

the time for silence and the time for talk.

⁸He sets the time for love and the time for hate,

the time for war and the time for peace.

⁹What do we gain from all our work? ¹⁰I know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us. ¹¹He has set the right time for everything. He has given us a desire to know the future, but never gives us the satisfaction of fully understanding what he does. ¹²So I realized that all we can do is to be happy and do the best we can while we are still alive. ¹³All of us should eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for. It is God’s gift.