Ecclesiastes 9:1-7

¹I had my mind consider all this. Wise and good people and everything they do are in God's hands. Love or hate—who knows what will happen to them?

²Yet we all share the same destiny—those who do right, those who do evil, the good, the religiously-observant and those that are not, those who sacrifice and those who don't. Those who do good are as those who sin, those who make vows to God are as those who don't.

³This is just so wrong—that everyone here on earth should suffer the same fate! On top of that, people's minds are filled with evil. They spend their lives thinking about stupid things, and then they die.

⁴But the living still have hope—a live dog is better than a dead lion!

⁵The living are conscious of the fact that they're going to die, but the dead have no consciousness of anything. They don't receive any further benefit; they're forgotten.

⁶Their love, hate, and envy—it's all gone. They have no further part in anything that happens here on earth.

⁷So go ahead and eat your food, and enjoy it. Drink your wine with a happy heart. That's what God intends that you should do.