Ecclesiastes 9:6-17

⁶also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, have now perished; yes, there is no portion for them any more for ever in all that is done under the sun.

⁷Go, eat your bread with mirth, and drink your wine with a joyful heart; for now God has favourably accepted your works.

⁸Let your garments be always white; and let not oil be lacking on your head.

⁹And see life with the wife whom you love all the days of the life of your vanity, which are given you under the sun: for that is your portion in your life, and in your labour wherein you labour under the sun.

¹⁰Whatsoever your hand shall find to do, do with all your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Hades wither you go.

¹¹I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, nor yet wealth to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of knowledge; for time and chance will happen to them all.

¹²For surely man also knows not his time: as fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as birds that are caught in a snare; even thus the sons of men are snared at an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.

¹³This I also saw to be wisdom under the sun, and it is great before me:

¹⁴suppose there were a little city, and few men in it; and there should come against it a great king, and surround it, and build great mounds against it;

¹⁵and should find in it a poor wise man, and he should save the city through his wisdom: yet no man would remember that poor man.

¹⁶And I said Wisdom is better than power: yet the wisdom of the poor man is set at nothing, and his words not listened to.

¹⁷The words of the wise are heard in quiet more than the cry of them that rule in folly.