Ecclesiastes 8

¹Who is as the wise? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? The wisdom of man causeth his face to shine, and the hardness of his face is changed. ²I pray thee, the commandment of a king keep, even for the sake of the oath of God. ³Be not troubled at his presence, thou mayest go, stand not in an evil thing, for all that he pleaseth he doth. ⁴Where the word of a king is power is, and who saith to him, ‘What dost thou?’ ⁵Whoso is keeping a command knoweth no evil thing, and time and judgment the heart of the wise knoweth.

⁶For to every delight there is a time and a judgment, for the misfortune of man is great upon him. ⁷For he knoweth not that which shall be, for when it shall be who declareth to him? ⁸There is no man ruling over the spirit to restrain the spirit, and there is no authority over the day of death, and there is no discharge in battle, and wickedness delivereth not its possessors.

⁹All this I have seen so as to give my heart to every work that hath been done under the sun; a time that man hath ruled over man to his own evil. ¹⁰And so I have seen the wicked buried, and they went in, even from the Holy Place they go, and they are forgotten in the city whether they had so done. This also is vanity. ¹¹Because sentence hath not been done on an evil work speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of man is full within them to do evil. ¹²Though a sinner is doing evil a hundred times, and prolonging himself for it, surely also I know that there is good to those fearing God, who fear before Him. ¹³And good is not to the wicked, and he doth not prolong days as a shadow, because he is not fearing before God.

¹⁴There is a vanity that hath been done upon the earth, that there are righteous ones unto whom it is coming according to the work of the wicked, and there are wicked ones unto whom it is coming according to the work of the righteous. I have said that this also is vanity. ¹⁵And I have praised mirth because there is no good to man under the sun except to eat and to drink, and to rejoice, and it remaineth with him of his labour the days of his life that God hath given to him under the sun. ¹⁶When I gave my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that hath been done on the earth, (for there is also a spectator in whose eyes sleep is not by day and by night), ¹⁷then I considered all the work of God, that man is not able to find out the work that hath been done under the sun, because though man labour to seek, yet he doth not find; and even though the wise man speak of knowing he is not able to find.

Chapter 9