Jubilee2000 - Ecclesiastes - 9

9:1  Certainly I applied my heart unto all of this that I might declare all of this: that the righteous and the wise and their works [are] in the hand of God; no man knows either love or hatred by all that [passes] before them.

9:2  All [things come] alike to all: [there is] one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean and to the unclean; to him that sacrifices and to him that does not sacrifice: as [unto] the good so [unto] the sinner; [and unto] him that swears as [unto him] that fears the oath.

9:3  This [is] an evil among all [things] that are done under the sun, that [there is] one event unto all; and also that the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness [is] in their heart while they live, and after that [they go] to the dead.

9:4  For to him that is [still] among the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

9:5  For the living know that they shall die, but the dead do not know any thing; neither do they have any more reward, for their memory is placed into oblivion.

9:6  Even their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished; neither have they any more a portion in the age in any [thing] that is done under the sun.

9:7  Go, eat thy bread with joy and drink thy wine with a joyful heart that thy works might be acceptable unto God.

9:8  Thy garments shall always be white, and thy head shall never lack ointment.

9:9  Live joyfully with the wife whom thou dost love all the days which thou art to live in this lake of vanity, which are given unto thee; all the days of thy vanity under the sun: for that [is] thy portion in [this] life, and in thy labour in which thou dost work under the sun.

9:10  Whatever thy hand finds to do, do [it] with [all] thy might, for [there is] no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, where thou goest.

9:11  I returned and saw under the sun that the race [is] not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of prudence, nor yet grace to men of eloquence; but time and chance happens to them all.

9:12  For man also does not know his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so [are] the sons of men snared in the evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.

9:13  I have also seen this wisdom under the sun, which is important unto me:

9:14  [There was] a little city and few men within it; and a great king came against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it;

9:15  now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no one remembered that same poor man.

9:16  Then I said, Wisdom [is] better than strength: even though the poor man's knowledge [is] despised, and his words are not heard.

9:17  The words of wise [men are] heard in quiet more than the cry of him that rules among fools.

9:18  Wisdom [is] better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.: