1 Cast your bread upon the surface of the waters, for after many days you will find it again.
2 Divide your portion among seven, or even eight, for you do not know what calamity may come upon the land.
3 When the clouds are full, they pour out rain on the earth; and if a tree falls to the south or to the north, wherever the tree falls, there it lies.
4 One who keeps watching the wind will never sow, and one who keeps looking at the clouds will never reap.
5 Just as you do not know the path of the wind, or how bones take shape in the womb of a pregnant woman, so you do not know the work of God, who makes all things.
6 Sow your seed in the morning, and do not hold back your hand in the evening; for you do not know which will succeed, this one or that, or whether both will do equally well.
7 Light is sweet, and it is pleasing for the eyes to behold the sun.
8 So if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in all of them; yet let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.
9 Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your young manhood; walk in the ways of your heart and in the sight of your eyes, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment.
10 Banish vexation from your heart and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.