Ecclesiastes 11:1–8

Be Bold

11Put your money into trade across the ocean.

After a while you will earn something from it.

²Give shares of what you earn to a lot of people.

After all, you don’t know what great trouble might come on the land.

³Clouds that are full of water

pour rain down on the earth.

A tree might fall to the south or the north.

It will stay in the place where it falls.

⁴Anyone who keeps on watching the wind won’t plant seeds.

Anyone who keeps looking at the clouds won’t gather crops.

⁵You don’t know the path the wind takes.

You don’t know how a baby is made inside its mother.

So you can’t understand how God works either.

He made everything.

⁶In the morning plant your seeds.

In the evening keep your hands busy.

You don’t know what will succeed.

It may be one or the other.

Or both might do equally well.

Remember the One Who Created You

⁷Light is sweet.

People enjoy being out in the sun.

⁸No matter how many years a man might live,

let him enjoy all of them.

But let him remember the dark days.

There will be many of them.

Nothing that’s going to happen will have any meaning.