Shared Word Translation
Ecclesiastes 5
Do not be hasty with your mouth, and do not let your heart be quick to bring forth a word before God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool’s voice through many words. When you make a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, for he takes no pleasure in fools. What you vow, pay. Better that you do not vow than that you vow and do not pay. Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, and do not say before the messenger, “It was an error.” Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands? For in an abundance of dreams, and vapors, and many words—fear God.
If you see the oppression of the poor, and the robbery of justice and righteousness in a province, do not be astonished at the matter. For one high official watches over another high official, and higher ones are over them. Yet the advantage of a land is in everything: a king is served by a field.
Whoever loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor whoever loves abundance with income. This too is vapor. When good things increase, those who consume them increase; and what advantage is there to their owners except to look on with their eyes? Sweet is the sleep of one who works, whether they eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not let them sleep. There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to their harm. That wealth is lost through a bad venture, and they father a child, but there is nothing in their hand. As they came forth from their mother’s womb, naked they will return, going as they came; and from their labor they will carry nothing away in their hand. This also is a grievous evil: entirely as they came, so they go. What profit is there for them in laboring for the wind? Indeed, all their days they eat in darkness, with much vexation, sickness, and anger.
Look: what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and see good in all one’s labor under the sun, during the few days of one’s life that God has given; for this is one’s portion. Also, every person to whom God has given wealth and possessions, and whom he has enabled to eat from them, to carry their portion, and to rejoice in their labor—this is God’s gift. For they will not remember much the days of their life, because God answers with the joy of their heart.