Ecclesiastes 6:1-12
6 There is an evil I have seen under the sun, and man has upon him a great deal of it:
2 * a man to whom God gives riches and substance and honors, and he has no shortage of anything his appetites crave, and God does not give him the privilege of eating from it but some alien eats it; this is nonsense and a grievous disorder.
3 ** If a man has a hundred born to him and lives many years, ever so long a life, and his appetites do not take their fill of good things and he does not have a regular burial either, I say a stillbirth is a better case than his,
4 because it came in nothingness and goes in darkness, and with darkness its name is covered,
5 * neither has it seen or known the sun—this has a more restful state than that man.
6 And if one lives a thousand years twice over and does not see good, does not everything go to one place?
7 All man’s trouble is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
8 * For how much better off is the wise man than the fool? how much the humble man who knows how to walk before the living?
9 Better seeing with eyes than rambling of desires. This too is nonsense and chasing after wind.
10 * What is is already named and known to be man, and he cannot contest against him who is more potent than he.
11 For there are many words that increase nonsense; what advance does man make?
12 * For who knows what is good for man in life, as many as are his days of nonsensical life which he passes through like a shadow? for who is to tell man what is to be after him under the sun?
Footnotes
^ 6:2 Lit. he is not short for his appetites of anything that he craves
^ 6:3 Lit. years, and much be what the days of his years are
^ 6:3 Lit. an aborted child is better than he
^ 6:5 Or neither has it seen the sun nor been conscious
^ 6:8 (last half) Unc.
^ 6:10 Conj. known to exist, and man cannot
^ 6:12 Lit. which he does like a shadow
