1 Who is smart enough
to explain everything?
Wisdom makes you cheerful
and gives you a smile.
Obey the King
2 If you promised God that you would be loyal to the king, I advise you to keep that promise. 3 Don't quickly oppose the king or argue when he has already made up his mind. 4 The king's word is law. No one can ask him, “Why are you doing this?” 5 If you obey the king, you will stay out of trouble. So be wise and learn what to do and when to do it. 6 Life is hard, but there is a time and a place for everything, 7 though no one can tell the future. 8 We cannot control the wind or determine the day of our death. There is no escape in time of war, and no one can hide behind evil. 9 I noticed all this and thought seriously about what goes on in the world. Why does one person have the power to hurt another?
Who Can Understand the Ways of God?
10 I saw the wicked buried with honor, but God's people had to leave the holy city and were forgotten. None of this makes sense. 11 When we see criminals commit crime after crime without being punished, it makes us want to start a life of crime. 12 They commit hundreds of crimes and live a long time, in spite of the saying:
Everyone who lives right
and respects God
will prosper,
13 but no one who sins
and rejects God
will prosper or live very long.
14 There is something else that doesn't make sense to me. Good citizens are treated as criminals, while criminals are honored as though they were good citizens. 15 So I think we should get as much out of life as we possibly can. There is nothing better than to enjoy our food and drink and have a good time. Then we can make it through this troublesome life that God has given us here on earth.
16 Day and night I went without sleep, trying to understand what goes on in this world. 17 I saw everything God does, and I realized no one can really understand what happens. We may be very wise, but no matter how much we try or how much we claim to know, we cannot understand it all.
1 Who is as the wise man ? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? a man’s wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed. 2 I counsel thee to keep the king’s commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God. 3 Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he doeth whatsoever pleaseth him. 4 Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou? 5 Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
6 ¶ Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him. 7 For he knoweth not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be? 8 There is no man that hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath 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.
9 All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. 10 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. 11 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.
12 ¶ 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: 13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.
14 There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men , unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men , to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity. 15 Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life, which God giveth him under the sun.
16 ¶ When I applied mine heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes:) 17 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 labour to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea further; though a wise man think to know it , yet shall he not be able to find it .