Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) 3

¹ There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:

² A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.

³ A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.

⁴ A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.

⁵ A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them up; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.

⁶ A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for throwing away.

⁷ A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.

⁸ A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.

⁹ What does a man gain for the efforts that he makes? .

¹⁰ I contemplate the task that God gives mankind to labour at.

¹¹ All that he does is apt for its time; but though he has permitted man to consider time in its wholeness, man cannot comprehend the work of God from beginning to end.

¹² I know there is no happiness for man except in pleasure and enjoyment while he lives.

¹³ And when man eats and drinks and finds happiness in his work, this is a gift from God.

¹⁴ I know that what God does he does consistently. To this nothing can be added, from this nothing taken away; yet God sees to it that men fear him.

¹⁵ What is, already was; what is to be, has been already; yet God cares for the persecuted.

¹⁶ But I still observe that under the sun crime is where law should be, the criminal where the good should be.

¹⁷ ‘God’ I thought to myself ‘will judge both virtuous and criminal, because there is a time here for all that is purposed or done.’

¹⁸ I also thought that mankind behaves like this so that God may show them up for what they are, and expose them for the brute beasts they are to each other.

¹⁹ Indeed, the fate of man and beast is identical; one dies, the other too, and both have the selfsame breath; man has no advantage over the beast, for all is vanity.

²⁰ Both go to the same place; both originate from the dust and to the dust both return.

²¹ Who knows if the spirit of man mounts upward or if the spirit of the beast goes down to the earth?

²² I see there is no happiness for man but to be happy in his work, for this is the lot assigned him. Who then can bring him to see what is to happen after his time?