Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes) 5

¹ Be in no hurry to speak; do not hastily declare yourself before God; for God is in heaven, you on earth. Be sparing, then, of speech:

² Dreaming comes from much worrying; foolish talk from a multiplicity of words.

³ If you make a vow to God, discharge it without delay, for God has no love for fools. Discharge your vow.

⁴ Better a vow unmade than made and not discharged.

⁵ Do not allow your own words to bring guilt on you, nor tell your angel afterwards it was unintentional. Why should a word of yours give God occasion to be angry, and destroy what your hands have worked for?

⁶ For every dream, a vanity to match; too many words, a chasing of the wind. Therefore, fear God.

⁷ If in a province you see the poor oppressed, right and justice violated, do not be surprised. You will be told that officials are under the supervision of superiors, who are supervised in turn;

⁸ you will hear talk of ‘the common good’ and ‘the service of the king’.

⁹ He who loves money never has money enough, he who loves wealth never has enough profit; this, too is vanity.

¹⁰ Where goods abound, parasites abound; and what is the good of them to their owner? That he can feast his eyes on them.

¹¹ The labourer’s sleep is sweet, whether he has eaten little or much; but the rich man’s wealth will not let him sleep at all.

¹² There is a great injustice that I observe under the sun: riches stored and turning to loss for their owner.

¹³ One unlucky venture, and those riches are lost; a son is born to him, and he has nothing to leave him.

¹⁴ Naked from his mother’s womb he came, as naked as he came he will depart again; nothing to take with him after all his efforts.

¹⁵ This is a grievous wrong, that as he came, so must he go; what profit can he show after toiling to earn the wind,

¹⁶ as he spends the rest of his days in darkness, grief, worry, sickness and resentment?

¹⁷ This, then, is my conclusion: the right happiness for man is to eat and drink and be content with all the work he has to do under the sun, during the few days God has given him to live, since this is the lot assigned him.

¹⁸ And whenever God gives a man riches and property, with the ability to enjoy them and to find contentment in his work, this is a gift from God.

¹⁹ He will not need to brood, at least, over the duration of his life so long as God keeps his heart occupied with joy.