⁹Do people really gain anything from their work? ¹⁰I saw the hard work God has given people to do. ¹¹God has given them a desire to know the future. He does everything just right and on time, but people can never completely understand what he is doing. ¹²So I realize that the best thing for them is to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live. ¹³God wants all people to eat and drink and be happy in their work, which are gifts from God. ¹⁴I know that everything God does will continue forever. People cannot add anything to what God has done, and they cannot take anything away from it. God does it this way to make people respect him.

¹⁵What happens now has happened in the past,

and what will happen in the future has happened before.

God makes the same things happen again and again.

Unfairness on Earth

¹⁶I also saw this here on earth:

Where there should have been justice, there was evil;

where there should have been right, there was wrong.

¹⁷I said to myself,

God has planned a time for every thing and every action,

so he will judge both good people and bad.

¹⁸I decided that God leaves it the way it is to test people and to show them they are just like animals. ¹⁹The same thing happens to animals and to people; they both have the same breath, so they both die. People are no better off than the animals, because everything is useless. ²⁰Both end up the same way; both came from dust and both will go back to dust. ²¹Who can be sure that the human spirit goes up to God and that the spirit of an animal goes down into the ground? ²²So I saw that the best thing people can do is to enjoy their work, because that is all they have. No one can help another person see what will happen in the future.

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