Jubilee2000 - Ecclesiastes - 5

5:1  Watch thy feet when thou goest to the house of God and draw near [with] more [willingness] to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know how to do what [God] wants.

5:2  Do not be rash with thy mouth and do not let thy heart be hasty to utter [any] thing before God, for God [is] in heaven and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.

5:3  For [out] of much preoccupation comes the dream, and the voice of the fool [out] of a multitude of words.

5:4  When thou dost vow a vow unto God, do not defer to pay it; for [he has] no pleasure in fools; pay that which thou hast vowed.

5:5  [It is] better that thou should not vow than that thou should vow and not pay.

5:6  Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it [was] ignorance. Why [should thou cause] God to be angry because of thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands?

5:7  Because dreams abound, and vanities and the words are many, but fear thou God.

5:8  If thou seest violence unto the poor and [the] extortion of rights and justice in a province, do not marvel at the matter, for height is looking upon height; and [there is] one higher than they.

5:9  And there is higher [authority] in all of the things of the earth, [but] he who serves the field is king.

5:10  He that loves money shall not be satisfied with money; nor he that loves abundance with increase; this [is] also vanity.

5:11  When goods increase, those that eat them are increased; and what good [is there] to the owners thereof, except the beholding [of them] with their eyes?

5:12  The sleep of the servant [is] sweet whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

5:13  There is [another] sore evil [which] I have seen under the sun, [namely], riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt;

5:14  which are lost by evil pursuits and to the sons which he has begotten; [there is] nothing left in his hand.

5:15  As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.

5:16  And this also [is] a sore evil; [that] in all points as he came, so shall he go; and what profit has he that has laboured for the wind?

5:17  In addition to this, all the days of his life he shall eat in darkness, with much wrath and pain and sorrow sickness.

5:18  Behold therefore the good which I have seen: that good is to eat and to drink and to enjoy of the good of all his labour that he takes under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him; for it [is] his portion.

5:19  Likewise, unto every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labour; this [is] the gift of God.

5:20  To such a one, God will remove the concerns common [to others], for God shall answer [him] with joy from his heart.: