Ecclesiastes 9:7-17

⁷So go ahead and eat your food, and enjoy it. Drink your wine with a happy heart. That's what God intends that you should do.

⁸Always wear smart clothes and look good.

⁹Enjoy life with the wife that you love—the one God gave you—during all the days of this brief life, all these passing days whose meaning is so hard to understand as you work here on earth.

¹⁰Whatever you do, do it with all your strength, for when you go to the grave there's no more working or thinking, no more knowing or being wise.

¹¹I thought about other things that happen here on earth. Races are not always won by the fastest runner. Battles are not always decided by the strongest warrior. Also, the wise do not always have food, intelligent people do not always make money, and those who are clever do not always win favor. Time and chance affect all of them.

¹²You can't predict when your end will come. Just like fish caught in a net, or birds caught in a trap, so people are suddenly caught by death when they least expect it.

¹³Here's another aspect of wisdom that impressed me about what happens here on earth.

¹⁴Once there was a small town with only a few inhabitants. A powerful king came and besieged the town, building great earth ramps against its walls.

¹⁵In that town lived a man who was wise, but poor. He saved the town by his wisdom. But no one remembered to thank that poor man.

¹⁶As I've always said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” Yet the wisdom of that poor man was dismissed—people didn't pay attention to what he said.

¹⁷It's better to listen to the calm words of a wise person than the shouts of a ruler of fools.