Ecclesiastes 5:1-20
5 Guard your feet+ whenever you go to the house of the [true] God; and let there be a drawing near* to hear,+ rather than to give a sacrifice as the stupid ones do,+ for they are not aware of doing what is bad.*+
2 Do not hurry yourself as regards your mouth; and as for your heart,+ let it not be hasty to bring forth a word before the [true] God.+ For the [true] God is in the heavens+ but you are on the earth. That is why your words should prove to be few.+
3 For a dream certainly comes in because of abundance of occupation,+ and the voice of a stupid one because of the abundance of words.+
4 Whenever you vow a vow to God, do not hesitate to pay it,+ for there is no delight in the stupid ones.+ What you vow, pay.+
5 Better is it that you vow+ not than that you vow and do not pay.+
6 Do not allow your mouth to cause your flesh to sin,*+ neither say before the angel*+ that it was a mistake.+ Why should the [true] God become indignant on account of your voice and have to wreck the work of your hands?+
7 For because of abundance [of occupation] there are dreams,+ and there are vanities and words in abundance. But fear the [true] God himself.+
8 If you see any oppression of the one of little means and the violent taking away of judgment+ and of righteousness in a jurisdictional district, do not be amazed over the affair,+ for one that is higher than the high one+ is watching,+ and there are those who are high above them.*
9 Also, the profit of the earth is among them all;+ for a field the king himself has been served.+
10 A mere lover of silver will not be satisfied with silver, neither any lover of wealth with income.*+ This too is vanity.+
11 When good things become many, those eating them certainly become many.+ And what advantage is there to the grand owner of them, except looking [at them] with his eyes?+
12 Sweet is the sleep+ of the one serving, regardless of whether it is little or much that he eats; but the plenty belonging to the rich one is not permitting him to sleep.
13 There exists a grave calamity that I have seen under the sun: riches being kept for their grand owner* to his calamity.+
14 And those riches have perished+ because of a calamitous occupation, and he has become father to a son when there is nothing at all in his hand.+
15 Just as one has come forth from his mother’s belly, naked will one go away again,+ just as one came; and nothing at all can one carry away+ for his hard work, which he can take along with his hand.
16 And this too is a grave calamity: exactly as one has come, so one will go away; and what profit is there to the one who keeps working hard for the wind?+
17 Also, all his days he eats in darkness itself, with a great deal of vexation,+ with sickness on his part and [cause for] indignation.
18 Look! The best thing that I myself have seen, which is pretty, is that one should eat and drink and see good for all his hard work+ with which he works hard under the sun for the number of the days of his life that the [true] God has given him, for that is his portion.
19 Also every man to whom the [true] God has given riches and material possessions,+ he has even empowered him to eat from it+ and to carry off his portion and to rejoice in his hard work.+ This is the gift of God.+
20 For not often will he remember the days of his life, because the [true] God is preoccupying* [him] with the rejoicing of his heart.+
Footnotes
^ “Let there be a drawing near.” In Heb. this is a verb in the infinitive absolute, indefinite as to time and impersonal.
^ MTLXXSyVg end chapter 4 here as vs 17.
^ “Do not allow the word of your mouth to determine the judgment of Gehenna upon your flesh,” T.
^ “Angel,” MTVg; LXXSy, “God.”
^ Or, “and there is the Supreme One above them.”
^ Lit., “and who is setting his love on wealthiness with no income (revenue)?”
^ “For their grand owner.” Heb., liv·ʽa·lavʹ.
^ Possibly, “answering,” according to another derivation of the Heb. verb.
