3:1
There is a season for everything, a time for every occupation under heaven:
3:2
A time for giving birth, a time for dying; a time for planting, a time for uprooting what has been planted.
3:3
A time for killing, a time for healing; a time for knocking down, a time for building.
3:4
A time for tears, a time for laughter; a time for mourning, a time for dancing.
3:5
A time for throwing stones away, a time for gathering them; a time for embracing, a time to refrain from embracing.
3:6
A time for searching, a time for losing; a time for keeping, a time for discarding.
3:7
A time for tearing, a time for sewing; a time for keeping silent, a time for speaking.
3:8
A time for loving, a time for hating; a time for war, a time for peace.
3:9
What do people gain from the efforts they make?
3:10
I contemplate the task that God gives humanity to labour at.
3:11
All that he does is apt for its time; but although he has given us an awareness of the passage of time, we can grasp neither the beginning nor the end of what God does.
3:12
I know there is no happiness for a human being except in pleasure and enjoyment through life.
3:13
And when we eat and drink and find happiness in all our achievements, this is a gift from God.
3:14
I know that whatever God does will be for ever. To this there is nothing to add, from this there is nothing to subtract, and the way God acts inspires dread.
3:15
What is, has been already, what will be, is already; God seeks out anyone who is persecuted.
3:16
Again I observe under the sun: crime is where justice should be, the criminal is where the upright should be.
3:17
And I think to myself: the upright and the criminal will both be judged by God, since there is a time for every thing and every action here.
3:18
I think to myself: where human beings are concerned, this is so that God can test them and show them that they are animals.
3:19
For the fate of human and the fate of animal is the same: as the one dies, so the other dies; both have the selfsame breath. Human is in no way better off than animal -- since all is futile.
3:20
Everything goes to the same place, everything comes from the dust, everything returns to the dust.
3:21
Who knows if the human spirit mounts upward or if the animal spirit goes downward to the earth?
3:22
I see there is no contentment for a human being except happiness in achievement; such is the lot of a human beings. No one can tell us what will happen after we are gone.
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