Ecclesiastes - The Old Testament

¹ Remember your Creator while you are still young, before the bad days come, before the years come which, you will say, give you no pleasure;

² before the sun and the light grow dim and the moon and stars, before the clouds return after the rain;

³ the time when your watchmen become shaky, when strong men are bent double, when the women, one by one, quit grinding, and, as they look out of the window, find their sight growing dim.

⁴ When the street-door is kept shut, when the sound of grinding fades away, when the first cry of a bird wakes you up, when all the singing has stopped;

⁵ when going uphill is an ordeal and you are frightened at every step you take- yet the almond tree is in flower and the grasshopper is weighed down and the caper-bush loses its tang; while you are on the way to your everlasting home and the mourners are assembling in the street;

⁶ before the silver thread snaps, or the golden bowl is cracked, or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, or the pulley broken at the well-head:

⁷ the dust returns to the earth from which it came, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

⁸ Sheer futility, Qoheleth says, everything is futile.

⁹ Besides being a sage, Qoheleth taught the people what he himself knew, having weighed, studied and emended many proverbs.

¹⁰ Qoheleth took pains to write in an attractive style and by it to convey truths.

¹¹ The sayings of a sage are like goads, like pegs positioned by shepherds: the same shepherd finds a use for both.

¹² Furthermore, my child, you must realise that writing books involves endless hard work, and that much study wearies the body.

¹³ To sum up the whole matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for that is the duty of everyone.

¹⁴ For God will call all our deeds to judgement, all that is hidden, be it good or bad.