Ecclesiastes 3:16–22

¹⁶Here’s something else I saw on earth.

Where people should be treated right,

they are treated wrong.

Where people should be treated fairly,

they are treated unfairly.

¹⁷I said to myself,

“God will judge

godly and sinful people alike.

He has a time for every act.

He has a time for everything that is done.”

¹⁸I also thought, “God puts human beings to the test. Then they can see they are just like animals. ¹⁹What happens to animals happens to people too. Death waits for people and animals alike. People die, just as animals do. All of them have the same breath. People don’t have any advantage over animals. Nothing has any meaning.

²⁰“People and animals go to the same place. All of them come from dust. And all of them return to dust. ²¹Who can know whether the spirit of a man goes up? Who can tell whether the spirit of an animal goes down into the earth?”

²²So man should enjoy his work. That’s what God made him for. I saw that there’s nothing better for him to do than that. After all, who can show him what will happen after he is gone?