Be Careful Before God
Study note
The Teacher gives practical advice about approaching God. He says to listen more than you talk, to keep your promises to God, and to let your words be few. Making promises you do not keep is worse than not making promises at all. The main point is clear: respect God.
1 Watch your step when you go to worship God. Show up ready to listen instead of offering thoughtless sacrifices like a fool who does not even realize they are doing something wrong. 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.
2 Do not start talking before you have thought it through, and do not rush into making promises to God. God is up in heaven and you are down on earth, so keep your words short and meaningful. Be 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.
3 When your mind is overloaded with worries, nightmares follow. When your mouth is overloaded with words, foolishness follows. For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
4 When you make a promise to God, follow through without delay. God has no patience for fools. Do what you said you would do. 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.
5 You are far better off making no promise at all than making one and then breaking it. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
6 Do not let careless words get you in trouble. And do not tell God's messenger, "Oops, I did not mean it." Why would you give God a reason to be angry with you and unravel the work you have done? Suffer 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?
7 Endless dreaming and endless talking both lead nowhere. Simply stand in reverent awe of God. For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.
The Emptiness of Wealth
Study note
The Teacher warns that loving money never leads to satisfaction. The more you have, the more people come to spend it. A worker sleeps peacefully, but a rich person lies awake worrying. Wealth can be lost in an instant through bad business, and you leave this world with nothing, just as you entered it.
8 If you see poor people being cheated and fairness denied in your area, do not be shocked. Every official has a higher official watching them. And there are even higher ones above those. If 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 Everyone depends on the land for food. Even the king relies on what the fields produce. Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.
10 If you love money, you will never feel like you have enough. If wealth is what you are after, you will never be satisfied with what you earn. That is completely meaningless. He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
11 The more money you make, the more people show up wanting to spend it. What good does wealth do for its owner other than giving them something to look at? When 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?
12 A person who works hard with their body sleeps like a baby, whether they eat a little or a lot. But all the wealth the rich person has keeps them lying awake worrying at night. The 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.
13 I have noticed a painful situation in this world: wealth that someone saves up ends up causing them harm. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.
14 That wealth disappears through a bad deal, and when they have a child, there is nothing at all left to pass down. But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
15 Every person arrives in this world naked and empty-handed, and every person leaves exactly the same way. You cannot take a single thing from your hard work with you when you go. As 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.
16 This is another painful reality. People exit life exactly the way they entered it. So what was the point of all that work and worry? And 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?
17 On top of that, they spend their whole lives eating in the dark. They are weighed down by frustration, pain, and bitterness. All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.
Enjoy What God Gives
Study note
The Teacher returns to his key insight: it is good and proper to eat, drink, and enjoy the reward of your work. When God gives someone wealth and the ability to enjoy it, that is a true gift. A person kept busy with gladness in their heart will not dwell too much on how short life is.
18 Here is what I figured out is truly good: eat, drink, and find satisfaction in the work you do during the brief life God gives you. That is the portion you have been given. 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.
19 And when God gives someone wealth and the ability to enjoy it, that person should receive it and be grateful. Being able to enjoy what you have is a genuine gift from God. Every 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.
20 A person like this will not worry too much about how short life is. God fills their days with things that make their heart glad. For he shall not much remember the days of his life; because God answereth him in the joy of his heart.