Ecclesiastes 9:5-16

⁵We who are alive know that some day we will die, but dead people do not know anything. Dead people do not receive any more rewards, and people soon forget them.

⁶While they were alive, they loved some people, they hated some people, they envied some people, but that all ends when they die. They will never again be a part of anything that happens here on the earth.

⁷So I say, be joyful DOU while you eat your food and drink your wine, because that is what God wants you to do.

⁸Wear nice MTY clothes and make your face look nice.

⁹Enjoy living with your wife whom you love, all during the time that God has given to you to be alive here on this earth. And even though it is difficult to understand why many things happen, enjoy doing the work that you do here on this earth.

¹⁰Whatever you are able to do, do it with all your energy, because some time you will die, and in the place of the dead where you are going, no one works or plans to do anything or knows anything or is wise.

¹¹I have seen something else here on the earth: The person who runs fastest does not always win the race, the strongest soldiers do not always win the battle, the wisest people do not always have food, the smartest people do not always become rich, and people who have studied a lot are not always ◄honored/treated very specially► by others; we cannot always control what things will happen to us and where they will happen.

¹²No one knows when he will die EUP; fish are cruelly caught in a net, and birds are caught in snares/traps; similarly SIM, people experience disasters at times when they do not expect them to happen.

¹³Once I saw something that a wise man did that impressed me.

¹⁴There was a small town, where only a few people lived. The army of a great king came to that town and surrounded it. They built dirt ramps up against the walls in order to climb up and attack the town.

¹⁵In that town there was a man who was poor but very wise. Because of doing what that man suggested, the town was saved; but people soon forgot about him.

¹⁶So I realized that although being wise is better than being strong, if you are poor, no one will appreciate what you do, and people will soon forget what you said.