Yet when I reflected on everything I had accomplished and on all the effort that I had expended to accomplish it, I concluded: “All these achievements and possessions are ultimately profitless – like chasing the wind! There is nothing gained from them on earth.”

So I loathed life because what happens on earth seems awful to me; for all the benefits of wisdom are futile – like chasing the wind.

I thought to myself, “God will judge both the righteous and the wicked; for there is an appropriate time for every activity, and there is a time of judgment for every deed.

So I perceived there is nothing better than for people to enjoy their work, because that is their reward; for who can show them what the future holds?

But better than both is the one who has not been born and has not seen the evil things that are done on earth.

When a sentence is not executed at once against a crime, the human heart is encouraged to do evil.

Go, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, because God has already approved your works.

Whatever you find to do with your hands, do it with all your might, because there is neither work nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, the place where you will eventually go.

For God will evaluate every deed, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.

The Lover to His Beloved: (7:2) How beautiful are your sandaled feet, O nobleman’s daughter! The curves of your thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a master craftsman.

They have stringed instruments, tambourines, flutes, and wine at their parties. So they do not recognize what the Lord is doing, they do not perceive what he is bringing about.

They will no longer trust in the altars their hands made, or depend on the Asherah poles and incense altars their fingers made.

The Lord has made them undiscerning; they lead Egypt astray in all she does, so that she is like a drunk sliding around in his own vomit.

The Lord who commands armies will pronounce a blessing over the earth, saying, “Blessed be my people, Egypt, and the work of my hands, Assyria, and my special possession, Israel!”

Those who try to hide their plans from the Lord are as good as dead, who do their work in secret and boast, “Who sees us? Who knows what we’re doing?”

Your thinking is perverse! Should the potter be regarded as clay? Should the thing made say about its maker, “He didn’t make me”? Or should the pottery say about the potter, “He doesn’t understand”?

For when they see their children, whom I will produce among them, they will honor my name. They will honor the Holy One of Jacob; they will respect the God of Israel.

They have burned the gods of the nations, for they are not really gods, but only the product of human hands manufactured from wood and stone. That is why the Assyrians could destroy them.

Look, I create the craftsman, who fans the coals into a fire and forges a weapon. I create the destroyer so he might devastate.

No longer will they build a house only to have another live in it, or plant a vineyard only to have another eat its fruit, for my people will live as long as trees, and my chosen ones will enjoy to the fullest what they have produced.