AFV2020 - Ecclesiastes - 8

8:1  Who is as the wise? And who knows the interpretation of a matter? A man's wisdom makes his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.

8:2  I counsel you, "Keep the king's word, and that in regard of the oath of God.

8:3  Do not be hasty to leave his presence. Do not take a stand in an evil thing, for he does whatever pleases him."

8:4  Because the word of a king is that which has power, who may say to him, "What are you doing?"

8:5  Whoever keeps the commandment shall feel no evil thing; and a wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment.

8:6  Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great.

8:7  For he does not know what shall be; for who can tell him when it shall be?

8:8  There is no man who has power over the wind to restrain the wind; nor power over the day of death; and there is no discharge from war; nor shall wickedness deliver those who are given to it.

8:9  All this I have seen, and I gave my heart to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man rules over another to his own hurt.

8:10  And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the holy place. And they were forgotten in the city where they had so done. This is also vanity.

8:11  Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

8:12  Though a sinner does evil a hundred times, and his days are prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with those who fear God, who fear before Him.

8:13  But it shall not be well with the wicked, nor shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he does not fear before God.

8:14  There is a vanity which is done upon the earth: There are just men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked ones to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

8:15  Then I commended pleasure, because a man has no better thing under the sun than to eat and to drink and to be merry; for that shall go with him in his labor through the days of his life which God gives him under the sun.

8:16  When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done upon the earth, for neither day nor night do men give sleep to their eyes,

8:17  Then I looked at all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun; because though a man labors to seek it out, yet he shall not find it. Yea, further, though a wise man thinks to know it, yet he shall not be able to find it.