Ecclesiastes 5

₁Be careful when you go to worship God at his temple. It is better to listen to what He says than to sacrifice_offerings like some fools do. They don't even know that they are doing wrong. ₂Think before you speak and be careful about what you say to God. God is in heaven and you are on the earth, so say only a few words to God. ₃When you are busy with too many things or you worry too much, then you dream about a lot of things. When you say too many things, you talk like a fool. ₄If you have made a promise to God to do something, do it quickly, and do not wait, because He does not like fools. Do what you have promised. ₅It is better not to promise anything to God than to promise Him something and not do it. ₆Don't say things that make you sin because then you will suffer. Don't say to the priest, the messenger of God: ‘I made a mistake. I promised things to God, but I did not mean it.’

If you do that, you will make God angry. He will destroy everything that you have worked for. ₇It does not help to dream a lot or to talk a lot, but it is good to respect God.

₈Sometimes you see a chief_official who oppresses a poor man and does things to him that are not fair. Do not be surprised when you see this because there is a more important official who protects that chief official and there is an even more important official who protects him. The governor is the leader of the important officials and he protects them all. ₉Everyone who lives in a land must get some of the money that the people in the land work for. A king is there to help all the people who work in the land. ₁₀People who love money always want to have more. People who want to be rich always harvest a lot of wheat, but it is never enough for them. Also this is not how it should be.

₁₁If you become rich, you get a lot of friends and people who come and want to eat what you have. You can only look at them and do nothing else.

₁₂People who work hard sleep well. It does not_matter to them if they eat a lot, but rich people eat too much and they can not sleep. ₁₃I have seen something bad happen in this world: Someone works hard to get a lot of money and things, but the things he has make him unhappy and make him suffer. ₁₄He can lose everything if something bad happens and then he has nothing to give to his children. ₁₅When he dies, he has nothing. He was born naked and with nothing, and when he dies, he also has nothing that he can show for all the hard work that he has done. ₁₆Also this is very bad. You go out of this world naked like you were when you came into it. You don't keep anything that you have worked so hard for. It is like trying to catch the wind. ₁₇Worst of all is that a man like that works hard his whole life but he stays in the dark. He suffers, he is always sick and he is angry with everyone.

₁₈I saw what is the best thing for someone to do in his life here on earth: He must enjoy eating, drinking, and working hard, because the life that God gives him is short. This is something that God gives him. ₁₉If God makes someone rich and makes things go well with him, and he can eat and enjoy the things that he has worked hard for, then he must know that it is a gift from God. ₂₀A person like that will not worry about things in his life. He will think only about the good things that God gives him.