Ecclesiastes 8

Translated from the Hebrew of the Westminster Leningrad Codex. Tap a verse to see why it reads as it does. Tap a small letter to read its footnote.

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Wisdom before a king

¹Who is like the wise? Who knows how to explain a matter? Wisdom makes a person’s face shine and softens its hard look. ²I say: obey the king’s command, because of the oath you swore before God. ³Do not be in a hurry to leave his presence, and do not take part in a bad cause, for he does whatever he pleases. ⁴The word of a king carries supreme power; who can say to him, “What are you doing?” ⁵Whoever obeys the command will come to no harm, and a wise heart will know the right time and the right way. ⁶For there is a right time and a right way for every matter, though a person’s trouble lies heavy on them. ⁷For no one knows what is to come, and who can tell anyone how it will happen? ⁸No one has power over the wind to hold it back, and no one has power over the day of death. There is no release from that war, and wickedness will not rescue those who practice it. ⁹All this I have seen as I gave my mind to everything that is done under the sun, while one person has power over another to that person’s harm. ¹⁰Then I saw the wicked buried. They used to come and go from the holy place, and they were forgotten in the city where they had done such things. This too is a breath. ¹¹Because the sentence against an evil deed is not carried out quickly, people’s hearts are set on doing evil. ¹²Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and lives a long life, I still know that it will go well with those who fear God, because they fear him. ¹³But it will not go well with the wicked, and their days will not grow long; they are like a shadow, because they do not fear God. ¹⁴There is something on earth that is a breath: there are righteous people who get what the wicked deserve, and there are wicked people who get what the righteous deserve. I said that this too is a breath. ¹⁵So I commend joy, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. That will stay with them in their hard work through the days of life that God gives them under the sun. ¹⁶When I set my mind to know wisdom and to see the work that is done on earth, where people get no sleep day or night, ¹⁷then I saw all that God has done: no one can find out the work that is done under the sun. However hard people work to search it out, they will not find it. Even if the wise claim to know it, they cannot find it out.