Ecclesiastes 9:4-16

⁴No man there is, that liveth ever, and that hath trust of this thing; better is a quick dog than a dead lion.

⁵For they that live know that they shall die; but dead men know nothing more, neither have meed further; for their mind is given to forgetting.

⁶Also their love, and hatred, and envy, perished altogether; and they have no part in this world, and in the work that is done under the sun.

⁷Therefore go thou, just man, and eat thy bread in gladness, and drink thy wine with joy; for thy works please God.

⁸In each time thy clothes be white, and oil fail not from thine head.

⁹Use thou life with the wife which thou lovest, in all the days of the life of thine unstableness, that be given to thee under the sun, in all the time of thy vanity; for this is thy part in thy life and thy travail, by which thou travailest under the sun.

¹⁰Work thou busily, whatever thing thine hand may do; for neither work, neither reason, nor knowing, nor wisdom, shall be at hells or with hell, whither thou hastest.

¹¹I turned me to another thing, and I saw under the sun, that running or course is not of swift men, neither battle is of strong men, neither bread is of wise men, neither riches be of teachers, nor grace is of craftsmen; but time and hap is in all things.

¹²A man knoweth not his end; but as fishes be taken with an hook, and as birds be taken with a snare, so men be taken in evil time, when it cometh suddenly up on them.

¹³Also I saw this wisdom under the sun, and I proved it the most.

¹⁴A little city, and few men therein; a great king came against it, and compassed it with pales, and he builded strongholds, either engines, by compass; and the besieging was made perfect.

¹⁵And a poor man and a wise was found therein; and he delivered the city by his wisdom, and no man bethought afterward on that poor man.

¹⁶And I said, that wisdom is better than strength; how therefore is the wisdom of a poor man despised, and his words be not heard?