Ecclesiastes 9:5-13

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. (For they who live at least know that they shall die; but the dead know nothing, nor have any further reward; even the memory of them is forgotten.)

⁶Also the(ir) love, and hatred, and envy, (have) perished (al)together; 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. (And so, O righteous person, go thou, and eat thy bread with happiness, 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. (At all times let thy clothes be white, and let thy head not lack oil.)

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. (Enjoy thou life with the wife whom thou lovest, in all the days of thy unstable, or thy changing, life, that be given to thee under the sun, in all thy empty and futile time; for this is thy portion in thy life, and thy labour in which thou labourest 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, whither thou hastest. (Busily work thou, at whatever thy hands can do; for neither work, nor reason, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, be in the land of the dead, where thou hastenest.)

¹¹I turned me to another thing, and I saw under the sun, that running 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. (I turned me to another thing, and I saw under the sun, that the race is not always to the swift, or the battle to the strong, or bread to the wise, or riches to those who teach, or favour to the skilled, but timing and happenstance be to everything.)

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 (an) evil time, when it cometh suddenly up on them.

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