Ecclesiastes 3:9–22

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.

¹⁴I know that everything God does will last for ever. You can’t add anything to it or take anything away from it. And one thing God does is to make us stand in awe of him. ¹⁵Whatever happens or can happen has already happened before. God makes the same thing happen again and again.

Injustice in the World

¹⁶In addition, I have also noticed that in this world you find wickedness where justice and right ought to be. ¹⁷I told myself, “God is going to judge the righteous and the evil alike, because every thing, every action, will happen at its own set time.”^{a 18}I concluded that God is testing us, to show us that we are no better than animals. ¹⁹After all, the same fate awaits human beings and animals alike. One dies just like the other. They are both the same kind of creature. A human being is no better off than an animal, because life has no meaning for either. ²⁰They are both going to the same place—the dust. They both came from it; they will both go back to it. ²¹How can anyone be sure that the human spirit goes upwards while an animal’s spirit goes down into the ground? ²²So I realized then that the best thing we can do is to enjoy what we have worked for. There is nothing else we can do.^b There is no way for us to know what will happen after we die.