1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
2 a time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to pull up what was planted;
3 a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to lament and a time to dance;
5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to search and a time to give up as lost; a time to keep and a time to cast away;
7 a time to rip and a time to mend; a time to be silent and a time to speak;
8 a time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.
9 What does the worker gain from his labor?
10 I have seen the business that God has given the sons of men to occupy them.
11 He has made everything fitting in its time; he has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out the work God has done from the beginning to the end.
12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be glad and to do good as long as they live;
13 and also that everyone should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor: this is God's gift.
14 I perceived that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it; and God has done it so that men should fear him.
15 What is now has been before, and what will be has been already; and God seeks what has been driven away.
16 I saw something more under the sun: in the place of judgment, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there.
17 I said to myself, "God will judge both the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every deed."
18 I said to myself concerning the sons of men, "God is proving them, to show them that they are but beasts."
19 For what befalls the sons of men befalls the beasts; one and the same fate befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beast, for everything is vanity.
20 All are going to one place. All are from the dust, and to the dust all return.
21 Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the beast, which goes downward into the earth?
22 So I saw that there is nothing better than for a man to enjoy his work, since that is his lot. For who can bring him to see what will come after him?