Chapter 5
1 Be not hasty in your utterance and let not your heart be quick to make a promise in God's presence. God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few.
2 For nightmares come with many cares, and a fool's utterance with many words.
3 When you make a vow to God, delay not its fulfillment. For God has no pleasure in fools; fulfill what you have vowed.
4 You had better not make a vow than make it and not fulfill it.
5 Let not your utterances make you guilty, and say not before his representative, "It was a mistake," lest God be angered by such words and destroy the works of your hands.
6 Rather, fear God!
7 If you see oppression of the poor, and violation of rights and justice in the realm, do not be shocked by the fact, for the high official has another higher than he watching him and above these are others higher still--.
8 Yet an advantage for a country in every respect is a king for the arable land.
9 The covetous man is never satisfied with money, and the lover of wealth reaps no fruit from it; so this too is vanity.
10 Where there are great riches, there are also many to devour them. Of what use are they to the owner except to feast his eyes upon?
11 Sleep is sweet to the laboring man, whether he eats little or much, but the rich man's abundance allows him no sleep.
12 This is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches kept by their owner to his hurt.
13 Should the riches be lost through some misfortune, he may have a son when he is without means.
14 As he came forth from his mother's womb, so again shall he depart, naked as he came, having nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand.
15 This too is a grievous evil, that he goes just as he came. What then does it profit him to toil for wind?
16 All the days of his life are passed in gloom and sorrow, under great vexation, sickness and wrath.
17 Here is what I recognize as good: it is well for a man to eat and drink and enjoy all the fruits of his labor under the sun during the limited days of the life which God gives him; for this is his lot.
18 Any man to whom God gives riches and property, and grants power to partake of them, so that he receives his lot and finds joy in the fruits of his toil, has a gift from God.
19 For he will hardly dwell on the shortness of his life, because God lets him busy himself with the joy of his heart.

Chapter 6
1 There is another evil which I have seen under the sun, and it weighs heavily upon man:
2 there is the man to whom God gives riches and property and honor, so that he lacks none of all the things he craves; yet God does not grant him power to partake of them, but a stranger devours them. This is vanity and a dire plague.
3 Should a man have a hundred children and live many years, no matter to what great age, still if he has not the full benefit of his goods, or if he is deprived of burial, of this man I proclaim that the child born dead is more fortunate than he.
4 Though it came in vain and goes into darkness and its name is enveloped in darkness;
5 though it has not seen or known the sun, yet the dead child is at rest rather than such a man.
6 Should he live twice a thousand years and not enjoy his goods, do not both go to the same place?
7 All man's toil is for his mouth, yet his desire is not fulfilled.
8 For what advantage has the wise man over the fool, or what advantage has the poor man in knowing how to conduct himself in life?
9 "What the eyes see is better than what the desires wander after." This also is vanity and a chase after wind.
10 Whatever is, was long ago given its name, and the nature of man is known, and that he cannot contend in judgment with one who is stronger than he.
11 For though there are many sayings that multiply vanity, what profit is there for a man?
12 For who knows what is good for a man in life, the limited days of his vain life (which God has made like a shadow)? Because-who is there to tell a man what will come after him under the sun?

Chapter 7
1 A good name is better than good ointment, and the day of death than the day of birth.
2 It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting, For that is the end of every man, and the living should take it to heart.
3 Sorrow is better than laughter, because when the face is sad the heart grows wiser.
4 The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
5 It is better to hearken to the wise man's rebuke than to hearken to the song of fools;
6 For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the fool's laughter.
7 For oppression can make a fool of a wise man, and a bribe corrupts the heart.
8 Better is the end of speech than its beginning; better is the patient spirit than the lofty spirit.
9 Do not in spirit become quickly discontented, for discontent lodges in the bosom of a fool.
10 Do not say: How is it that former times were better than these? For it is not in wisdom that you ask about this.
11 Wisdom and an inheritance are good, and an advantage to those that see the sun.
12 For the protection of wisdom is as the protection of money; and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.
13 Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what he has made crooked?
14 On a good day enjoy good things, and on an evil day consider: Both the one and the other God has made, so that man cannot find fault with him in anything.
15 I have seen all manner of things in my vain days: a just man perishing in his justice, and a wicked one surviving in his wickedness.
16 "Be not just to excess, and be not overwise, lest you be ruined.
17 Be not wicked to excess, and be not foolish. Why should you die before your time?"
18 It is good to hold to this rule, and not to let that one go; but he who fears God will win through at all events.
19 Wisdom is a better defense for the wise man than would be ten princes in the city,
20 yet there is no man on earth so just as to do good and never sin.
21 Do not give heed to every word that is spoken lest you hear your servant speaking ill of you,
22 for you know in your heart that you have many times spoken ill of others.
23 All these things I probed in wisdom. I said, "I will acquire wisdom"; but it was beyond me.
24 What exists is far-reaching; it is deep, very deep: who can find it out?
25 I turned my thoughts toward knowledge; I sought and pursued wisdom and reason, and I recognized that wickedness is foolish and folly is madness.
26 More bitter than death I find the woman who is a hunter's trap, whose heart is a snare and whose hands are prison bonds. He who is pleasing to God will escape her, but the sinner will be entrapped by her.
27 Behold, this have I found, says Qoheleth, adding one thing to another that I might discover the answer
28 which my soul still seeks and has not found: One man out of a thousand have I come upon, but a woman among them all I have not found.
29 Behold, only this have I found out: God made mankind straight, but men have had recourse to many calculations.

Chapter 8
1 Who is like the wise man, and who knows the explanation of things? A man's wisdom illumines his face, but an impudent look is resented.
2 Observe the precept of the king, and in view of your oath to God,
3 be not hasty to withdraw from the king; do not join in with a base plot, for he does whatever he pleases,
4 because his word is sovereign, and who can say to him, "What are you doing?"
5 "He who keeps the commandment experiences no evil, and the wise man's heart knows times and judgments;
6 for there is a time and a judgment for everything."--Yet it is a great affliction for man
7 that he is ignorant of what is to come; for who will make known to him how it will be?
8 There is no man who is master of the breath of life so as to retain it, and none has mastery of the day of death. There is no exemption from the struggle, nor are the wicked saved by their wickedness.
9 All these things I considered and I applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun, while one man tyrannizes over another to his hurt.
10 Meanwhile I saw wicked men approach and enter; and as they left the sacred place, they were praised in the city for what they had done. This also is vanity.
11 Because the sentence against evildoers is not promptly executed, therefore the hearts of men are filled with the desire to commit evil--
12 because the sinner does evil a hundred times and survives. Though indeed I know that it shall be well with those who fear God, for their reverence toward him;
13 and that it shall not be well with the wicked man, and he shall not prolong his shadowy days, for his lack of reverence toward God.
14 This is a vanity which occurs on earth: there are just men treated as though they had done evil and wicked men treated as though they had done justly. This, too, I say is vanity.
15 Therefore I commend mirth, because there is nothing good for man under the sun except eating and drinking and mirth: for this is the accompaniment of his toil during the limited days of the life which God gives him under the sun.
16 When I applied my heart to know wisdom and to observe what is done on earth,
17 I recognized that man is unable to find out all God's work that is done under the sun, even though neither by day nor by night do his eyes find rest in sleep. However much man toils in searching, he does not find it out; and even if the wise man says that he knows, he is unable to find it out.