Ecclesiastes 5

¹¶ Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

²Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter [any] thing before God: for God [is] in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

³For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice [is known] by multitude of words.

⁴¶ When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for [he hath] no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.

⁵Better [is it] that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

⁶Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it [was] an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?

⁷For in the multitude of dreams and many words [there are] also [divers] vanities: but fear thou God.

⁸If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for [he that is] higher than the highest regardeth; and [there be] higher than they.

⁹¶ Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king [himself] is served by the field.

¹⁰He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this [is] also vanity.

¹¹When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good [is there] to the owners thereof, saving the beholding [of them] with their eyes?

¹²The sleep of a labouring man [is] sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

¹³There is a sore evil [which] I have seen under the sun, [namely], riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.

¹⁴But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and [there is] nothing in his hand.

¹⁵As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.

¹⁶And this also [is] a sore evil, [that] in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind?

¹⁷All his days also he eateth in darkness, and [he hath] much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.

¹⁸¶ Behold [that] which I have seen: [it is] good and comely [for one] to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that he taketh under the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it [is] his portion.

¹⁹Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labour; this [is] the gift of God.

²⁰For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth [him] in the joy of his heart.