8:2 I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God.
8:3 Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he doeth whatsoever pleased him.
8:4 Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What does thou?
8:5 Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerned both time and judgment.
8:6 Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great upon him.
8:7 For he knows not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?
8:8Tthere 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.
8:9 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 ruled over another to his own hurt.
8:10 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.
8:11 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.
8:12 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:
8:13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feared not before God.
8:14 There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there be just men, unto whom it happened according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happened according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.
8:15 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 labor the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun.
8:16 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 seethe sleep with his eyes:)
8:17 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 labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yea farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it.
9
9:1 For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knows either love or hatred by all that is before them.
9:2 All things come alike to alclass="underline" there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificed’
, and to him that sacrificed not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweared as he that feared an oath.
9:3 This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto alclass="underline" yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
9:4 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
9:5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
9:6 Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.
9:7 Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepted thy works.
9:8 Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.
9:9 Live joyfully with the wife, whom thou love all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity; for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takes under the sun.
9:10 Whatsoever thy hand fended to do do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goes.
9:11 I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift. Nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happened to them all.
9:12 For man also knows not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falled suddenly upon them.
9:13 This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great unto me:
9:14 There was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
9:15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.
9:16 Then said I, Wisdom is better than strength: nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
9:17 The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruled among fools.
9:18 Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroyed much good.
10
10:1 Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor: so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor.
10:2 A wise man's heart is at his right hand; but a fool's heart at his left.