Ecclesiastes 9:4-12

⁴For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

⁵For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

⁶Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, hath now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

⁷Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.

⁸Let thy garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.

⁹Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest 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 takest under the sun.

¹⁰Whatever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

¹¹I 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 happeneth to them all.

¹²For man also knoweth 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 falleth suddenly upon them.