Ecclesiastes 3

God Has Ordained the Ebb and Flow of Human Activities

3For everything there is an appointed time, a time for every matter under heaven:

²a time to bear^a and a time to die;

a time to plant and a time to root up what is planted;

³a time to kill and a time to heal;

a time to break down and a time to build up;

⁴a time to weep and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn and a time to dance;

⁵a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones;

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;

⁶a time to seek and a time to lose;

a time to keep and a time to throw away;

⁷a time to tear and a time to sew;

a time to be silent and a time to speak;

⁸a time to love and a time to hate;

a time for war and a time for peace.

⁹What does the worker gain in his toil?

No One Understands God’s Mysterious Plan

¹⁰I have seen the business God gives to humans^b to preoccupy^c them. ¹¹He has made everything suitable in its time. He also has put the past^d in their hearts, yet no one can grasp what God does from the beginning to the end. ¹²So I realized that there is nothing better^e for them than to rejoice and enjoy themselves^f during their lives. ¹³And for anyone to eat and drink, that is, to enjoy the fruit of all his toil,^g this also is a gift of God.

¹⁴I know everything God does endures forever;

nothing can be added to it, and nothing can be taken from it,

for God so acts that humans^h might stand in awe before him.

¹⁵What is—it already was,

and what will be—it already is,

for God will do what he has done.ⁱ

God’s Mysterious Plan Allows Injustice to Exist in the World

¹⁶I saw something else under the sun: instead of justice there was evil; instead of righteousness there was wickedness. ¹⁷So I said to myself,^j “God will surely judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed^k a time of judgment for every deed and every work.”

¹⁸I said to myself concerning humans,^l “God sifts^m them in order to showⁿ them that they are like beasts.” ¹⁹For the fate of humans^o and the fate of the beast is the same.^p The death of the one is like the death of the other, for both are mortal.^q Man has no advantage over the beast, for both are fleeting. ²⁰Both go to one place—both came from dust and both return to dust. ²¹For no one knows whether the spirit of a human ascends to heaven and whether the spirit of the beast descends to the ground!

²²So I concluded that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy the fruit of his labor, for this is his lot in life. For no one knows what will happen in the future.^r