Ecclesiastes 5:5-14

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

⁶Suffer not thy mouth to bring punishment on thy flesh, and say not before the angel, “It was a mistake.” Wherefore should God be angry on account of thy voice, and destroy the work of thy hands?

⁷For in a multitude of dreams is a multitude of vanities; so also in a multitude of words; but fear thou God!

⁸If thou seest oppression of the poor, and justice and equity perverted in a province, be not alarmed at the matter. For over the high there is a higher, who watcheth, and there is one higher than they all.

⁹An advantage to a land in all respects is a king over cultivated ground.

¹⁰He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; and he that loveth riches shall have no profit from them. This also is vanity.

¹¹When goods increase, they are increased that eat them; and what advantage hath the owner thereof, save the beholding of them with his eyes?

¹²Sweet is the sleep of a laboring man, whether he have eaten little or much; but the repletion of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

¹³There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, — riches kept by the owner thereof to his hurt.

¹⁴For those riches perish by some calamity, and, if he have a son, there is nothing in his hand.