Ecclesiastes 5:1-11

¹Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and draw near to hear, rather than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they know not that they do evil.

²Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thy heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in the heavens, and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.

³For a dream cometh through the multitude of business, and a fool's voice through a multitude of words.

⁴When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.

⁵Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

⁶Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an inadvertence. Wherefore should God be wroth at thy voice, and destroy the work of thy hands?

⁷For in the multitude of dreams are vanities; so with many words: but fear God.

⁸If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter; for a higher than the high is watching, and there are higher than they.

⁹Moreover the earth is every way profitable: the king himself is dependent upon the field.

¹⁰He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth abundance with increase. This also is vanity.

¹¹When goods increase, they are increased that eat them; and what profit is there to the owner thereof, except the beholding of them with his eyes?