Ecclesiastes 8
Ecclesiastes
Who is as the wise man? and who knows the interpretation of a thing? a man’s wisdom makes his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.
I counsel you to keep the king’s commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God.
Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he does whatever pleases him.
Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say to him, What do you?
Whoever keeps the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerns both time and judgment. ¶
Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great on him.
For he knows not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?
There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.
All this have I seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man rules over another to his own hurt.
And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.
Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. ¶
Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:
But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he fears not before God.
There is a vanity which is done on the earth; that there be just men, to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.
Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun. ¶
When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes:)
Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yes farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.