An eye on eternity - 23 November 2023

₁₀I know the heavy burdens that God has laid on us.

₁Then I looked again at all the injustice that goes on in this world. The oppressed were weeping, and no one would help them. No one would help them, because their oppressors had power on their side. ₂I envy those who are dead and gone; they are better off than those who are still alive. ₃But better off than either are those who have never been born, who have never seen the injustice that goes on in this world.

₄I have also learnt why people work so hard to succeed: it is because they envy their neighbours. But it is useless. It is like chasing the wind. ₅They say that anyone would be a fool to fold his hands and let himself starve to death. ₆Perhaps so, but it is better to have only a little, with peace of mind, than to be busy all the time with both hands, trying to catch the wind.

₇I have noticed something else in life that is useless. ₈Here is a man who lives alone. He has no son, no brother, yet he is always working, never satisfied with the wealth he has. For whom is he working so hard and denying himself any pleasure? This is useless, too — and a miserable way to live.

₉Two are better off than one, because together they can work more effectively. ₁₀If one of them falls down, the other can help him up. But if someone is alone and falls, it's just too bad, because there is no one to help him. ₁₁If it is cold, two can sleep together and stay warm, but how can you keep warm by yourself? ₁₂Two people can resist an attack that would defeat one person alone. A rope made of three cords is hard to break.

_13-14A man may rise from poverty to become king of his country, or go from prison to the throne, but if in his old age he is too foolish to take advice, he is not as well off as a young man who is poor but intelligent. ₁₅I thought about all the people who live in this world, and I realized that somewhere among them there is a young man who will take the king's place. ₁₆There may be no limit to the number of people a king rules; when he is gone, no one will be grateful for what he has done. It is useless. It is like chasing the wind.

₁Be careful about going to the Temple. It is better to go there to learn than to offer sacrifices as foolish people do, people who don't know right from wrong. ₂Think before you speak, and don't make any rash promises to God. He is in heaven and you are on earth, so don't say any more than you have to. ₃The more you worry, the more likely you are to have bad dreams, and the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something foolish. ₄So when you make a promise to God, keep it as quickly as possible. He has no use for a fool. Do what you promise to do. ₅Better not to promise at all than to make a promise and not keep it. ₆Don't let your own words lead you into sin, so that you have to tell God's priest that you didn't mean it. Why make God angry with you? Why let him destroy what you have worked for? ₇No matter how much you dream, how much useless work you do, or how much you talk, you must still stand in awe of God.

₈Don't be surprised when you see that the government oppresses the poor and denies them justice and their rights. Every official is protected by the one over him, and both are protected by still higher officials.

₉Even a king depends on the harvest.

₁₀If you love money, you will never be satisfied; if you long to be rich, you will never get all you want. It is useless. ₁₁The richer you are, the more mouths you must feed. All you gain is the knowledge that you are rich. ₁₂Workers may or may not have enough to eat, but at least they can get a good night's sleep. The rich, however, have so much that they stay awake worrying.

₁₃Here is a terrible thing that I have seen in this world: people save up their money for a time when they may need it, ₁₄and then lose it all in some unlucky deal and end up with nothing left to pass on to their children. ₁₅We leave this world just as we entered it — with nothing. In spite of all our work there is nothing we can take with us. ₁₆It isn't right! We go just as we came. We labour, trying to catch the wind, and what do we get? ₁₇We have to live our lives in darkness and grief, worried, angry, and sick.

₁₈This is what I have found out: the best thing anyone can do is to eat and drink and enjoy what he has worked for during the short life that God has given him; this is man's fate. ₁₉If God gives a man wealth and property and lets him enjoy them, he should be grateful and enjoy what he has worked for. It is a gift from God. ₂₀Since God has allowed him to be happy, he will not worry too much about how short life is.

₁I have noticed that in this world a serious injustice is done. ₂God will give someone wealth, honour, and property, yes, everything he wants, but then will not let him enjoy it. Some stranger will enjoy it instead. It is useless, and it's all wrong. ₃A person may have a hundred children and live a long time, but no matter how long he lives, if he does not get his share of happiness and does not receive a decent burial, then I say that a baby born dead is better off. ₄It does that baby no good to be born; it disappears into darkness, where it is forgotten. ₅It never sees the light of day or knows what life is like, but at least it has found rest — ₆more so than the man who never enjoys life, though he may live 2,000 years. After all, both of them are going to the same place.

₇People do all their work just to get something to eat, but they never have enough. ₈How are the wise better off than fools? What good does it do the poor to know how to face life? ₉It is useless; it is like chasing the wind. It is better to be satisfied with what you have than to be always wanting something else.

₁₀Everything that happens was already determined long ago, and we all know that you cannot argue with someone who is stronger than you are. ₁₁The longer you argue, the more useless it is, and you are no better off. ₁₂How can anyone know what is best for us in this short, useless life of ours — a life that passes like a shadow? How can we know what will happen in the world after we die?

₁A good reputation is better than expensive perfume; and the day you die is better than the day you are born.

₂It is better to go to a home where there is mourning than to one where there is a party, because the living should always remind themselves that death is waiting for us all.

₃Sorrow is better than laughter; it may sadden your face, but it sharpens your understanding.

₄Someone who is always thinking about happiness is a fool. A wise person thinks about death.

₅It is better to have wise people reprimand you than to have stupid people sing your praises.

₆When a fool laughs, it is like thorns crackling in a fire. It doesn't mean a thing.

₇You may be wise, but if you cheat someone, you are acting like a fool. If you take a bribe, you ruin your character.

₈The end of anything is better than its beginning.

Patience is better than pride.

₉Keep your temper under control; it is foolish to harbour a grudge.

₁₀Never ask, “Oh, why were things so much better in the old days?” It's not an intelligent question.

₁₁Everyone who lives ought to be wise; it is as good as receiving an inheritance ₁₂and will give you as much security as money can. Wisdom keeps you safe — this is the advantage of knowledge.

₁₃Think about what God has done. How can anyone straighten out what God has made crooked? ₁₄When things are going well for you, be glad, and when trouble comes, just remember: God sends both happiness and trouble; you never know what is going to happen next.

₁₅My life has been useless, but in it I have seen everything. Some good people may die while others live on, even though they are evil. ₁₆So don't be too good or too wise — why kill yourself? ₁₇But don't be too wicked or too foolish, either — why die before you have to? ₁₈Avoid both extremes. If you have reverence for God, you will be successful anyway.

₁₉Wisdom does more for a person than ten rulers can do for a city.

₂₀There is no one on earth who does what is right all the time and never makes a mistake.

₂₁Don't pay attention to everything people say — you may hear your servant insulting you, ₂₂and you know yourself that you have insulted other people many times.

₂₃I used my wisdom to test all of this. I was determined to be wise, but it was beyond me. ₂₄How can anyone discover what life means? It is too deep for us, too hard to understand. ₂₅But I devoted myself to knowledge and study; I was determined to find wisdom and the answers to my questions, and to learn how wicked and foolish stupidity is.

₂₆I found something more bitter than death — the woman who is like a trap. The love she offers you will catch you like a net; and her arms round you will hold you like a chain. A man who pleases God can get away, but she will catch the sinner. ₂₇Yes, said the Philosopher, I found this out little by little while I was looking for answers. ₂₈I have looked for other answers but have found none. I found one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not one woman. ₂₉This is all that I have learnt: God made us plain and simple, but we have made ourselves very complicated.

₁Only the wise know what things really mean. Wisdom makes them smile and makes their frowns disappear.

₂Do what the king says, and don't make any rash promises to God. ₃The king can do anything he likes, so depart from his presence; don't stay in such a dangerous place. ₄The king acts with authority, and no one can challenge what he does. ₅As long as you obey his commands, you are safe, and a wise person knows how and when to do it. ₆There is a right time and a right way to do everything, but we know so little! ₇None of us knows what is going to happen, and there is no one to tell us. ₈No one can keep from dying or put off the day of death. That is a battle we cannot escape; we cannot cheat our way out.

₉I saw all this when I thought about the things that are done in this world, a world where some people have power and others have to suffer under them. ₁₀Yes, I have seen the wicked buried and in their graves, but on the way back from the cemetery people praise them in the very city where they did their evil. It is useless.

₁₁Why do people commit crimes so readily? Because crime is not punished quickly enough. ₁₂A sinner may commit a hundred crimes and still live. Oh yes, I know what they say: “If you obey God, everything will be all right, ₁₃but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God.” ₁₄But this is nonsense. Look at what happens in the world: sometimes the righteous get the punishment of the wicked, and the wicked get the reward of the righteous. I say it is useless.

₁₅So I am convinced that we should enjoy ourselves, because the only pleasure we have in this life is eating and drinking and enjoying ourselves. We can at least do this as we labour during the life that God has given us in this world.

₁₆Whenever I tried to become wise and learn what goes on in the world, I realized that you could stay awake night and day ₁₇and never be able to understand what God is doing. However hard you try, you will never find out. The wise may claim to know, but they don't.

₁I thought long and hard about all this and saw that God controls the actions of wise and righteous people, even their love and their hate. No one knows anything about what lies ahead. ₂It makes no difference. The same fate comes to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the bad, to those who are religious and those who are not, to those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. A good person is no better off than a sinner; one who takes an oath is no better off than one who does not. ₃One fate comes to all alike, and this is as wrong as anything that happens in this world. As long as people live, their minds are full of evil and madness, and suddenly they die. ₄But anyone who is alive in the world of the living has some hope; a live dog is better off than a dead lion. ₅Yes, the living know they are going to die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward; they are completely forgotten. ₆Their loves, their hates, their passions, all died with them. They will never again take part in anything that happens in this world.

₇Go ahead — eat your food and be happy; drink your wine and be cheerful. It's all right with God. ₈Always look happy and cheerful. ₉Enjoy life with the woman you love, as long as you live the useless life that God has given you in this world. Enjoy every useless day of it, because that is all you will get for all your trouble. ₁₀Work hard at whatever you do, because there will be no action, no thought, no knowledge, no wisdom in the world of the dead — and that is where you are going.

₁₁I realized another thing, that in this world fast runners do not always win the race, and the brave do not always win the battle. The wise do not always earn a living, intelligent people do not always get rich, and capable people do not always rise to high positions. Bad luck happens to everyone. ₁₂You never know when your time is coming. Like birds suddenly caught in a trap, like fish caught in a net, we are trapped at some evil moment when we least expect it.

₁₃There is something else I saw, a good example of how wisdom is regarded in this world. ₁₄There was a little town without many people in it. A powerful king attacked it. He surrounded it and prepared to break through the walls. ₁₅Someone lived there who was poor, but so clever that he could have saved the town. But no one thought about him. ₁₆I have always said that wisdom is better than strength, but no one thinks of the poor as wise or pays any attention to what they say. ₁₇It is better to listen to the quiet words of a wise person than to the shouts of a ruler at a council of fools. ₁₈Wisdom does more good than weapons, but one sinner can undo a lot of good.

₁Dead flies can make a whole bottle of perfume stink, and a little stupidity can cancel out the greatest wisdom.

₂It is natural for the wise to do the right thing and for fools to do the wrong thing. ₃Their stupidity will be evident even to strangers they meet along the way; they let everyone know that they are fools.

₄If your ruler becomes angry with you, do not hand in your resignation; serious wrongs may be pardoned if you keep calm.

₅Here is an injustice I have seen in the world — an injustice caused by rulers. ₆Stupid people are given positions of authority while the rich are ignored. ₇I have seen slaves on horseback while noblemen go on foot like slaves.

₈If you dig a pit, you fall in it; if you break through a wall, a snake bites you. ₉If you work in a stone quarry, you get hurt by stones. If you split wood, you get hurt doing it. ₁₀If your axe is blunt and you don't sharpen it, you have to work harder to use it. It is more sensible to plan ahead. ₁₁Knowing how to charm a snake is of no use if you let the snake bite first. ₁₂What the wise say brings them honour, but fools are destroyed by their own words. ₁₃They start out with silly talk and end up with pure madness. ₁₄A fool talks on and on.

No one knows what is going to happen next, and no one can tell us what will happen after we die.

₁₅Only someone too stupid to find his way home would wear himself out with work.

₁₆A country is in trouble when its king is a youth and its leaders feast all night long. ₁₇But a country is fortunate to have a king who makes his own decisions and leaders who eat at the proper time, who control themselves and don't get drunk.

₁₈When someone is too lazy to repair his roof, it will leak, and the house will fall in.

₁₉Feasting makes you happy and wine cheers you up, but you can't have either without money.

₂₀Don't criticize the king, even silently, and don't criticize the rich, even in the privacy of your bedroom. A bird might carry the message and tell them what you said.

₁Invest your money in foreign trade, and one of these days you will make a profit. ₂Put your investments in several places — many places, in fact — because you never know what kind of bad luck you are going to have in this world.

₃No matter in which direction a tree falls, it will lie where it fell. When the clouds are full, it rains. ₄If you wait until the wind and the weather are just right, you will never sow anything and never harvest anything. ₅God made everything, and you can no more understand what he does than you understand how new life begins in the womb of a pregnant woman. ₆Do your sowing in the morning and in the evening, too. You never know whether it will all grow well or whether one sowing will do better than the other.

₇It is good to be able to enjoy the pleasant light of day. ₈Be grateful for every year you live. No matter how long you live, remember that you will be dead much longer. There is nothing at all to look forward to.

₉Young people, enjoy your youth. Be happy while you are still young. Do what you want to do, and follow your heart's desire. But remember that God is going to judge you for whatever you do.

₁₀Don't let anything worry you or cause you pain. You aren't going to be young very long.