Ecclesiastes 5

1. Guard your steps when you go to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools. For they do not know that they are doing evil.

2. Do not be rash with your mouth, and do not let your heart be hasty to say a word before God. For God is in heaven, and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few.

3. For a dream comes through the multitude of business; and a fool’s voice is known by the multitude of words.

4. When you vow a vow to God, do not delay to pay it. For He has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you have vowed.

5. It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not pay.

6. Do not allow your mouth to cause your flesh to sin; and do not say before the angel that it was an error. For why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

7. For in the multitude of dreams and many words vanities abound; but fear God.

8. If you see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perverting of justice and righteousness in a province, do not marvel at the matter. For one official watches over another official, and there are higher officials over them.

9. Moreover, the profit of the land is for all; for even the king himself is served by the field.

10. He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, and he who loves abundance shall not be satisfied with gain. This is also vanity.

11. When goods increase, those who eat them increase; then what profit is it to its owners, except to see them with their eyes?

12. The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.

13. There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept by their owners to their own hurt.

14. But those riches perish through evil use. And he begets a son, and there is nothing in his hand.

15. As he came forth from his mother’s womb naked, he shall return to go as he came. And from his labor he may not carry anything away that may go in his hand.

16. And this also is a sore evil, that in everything, as he came, so shall he go; and what profit does he have who has labored for the wind?

17. Also all his days he eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.

18. Behold that which I have seen: It is good and right for one to eat and to drink, and to see good in all his labor that he labors under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him; for it is his portion.

19. As for every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God.

20. For he does not often consider the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with gladness of his heart.