Ecclesiastes 12

Ecclesiastes 12

1 Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, “Life is not pleasant anymore.” ² Remember him before the light of the sun, moon, and stars is dim to your old eyes, and rain clouds continually darken your sky. ³ Remember him before your legs—the guards of your house—start to tremble; and before your shoulders—the strong men—stoop. Remember him before your teeth—your few remaining servants—stop grinding; and before your eyes—the women looking through the windows—see dimly.

⁴ Remember him before the door to life’s opportunities is closed and the sound of work fades. Now you rise at the first chirping of the birds, but then all their sounds will grow faint.

⁵ Remember him before you become fearful of falling and worry about danger in the streets; before your hair turns white like an almond tree in bloom, and you drag along without energy like a dying grasshopper, and the caperberry no longer inspires sexual desire. Remember him before you near the grave, your everlasting home, when the mourners will weep at your funeral.

⁶ Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well. ⁷ For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Concluding Thoughts about the Teacher

⁸ “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless.”

⁹ Keep this in mind: The Teacher was considered wise, and he taught the people everything he knew. He listened carefully to many proverbs, studying and classifying them. ¹⁰ The Teacher sought to find just the right words to express truths clearly.^[a]

¹¹ The words of the wise are like cattle prods—painful but helpful. Their collected sayings are like a nail-studded stick with which a shepherd^[b] drives the sheep.

¹² But, my child,^[c] let me give you some further advice: Be careful, for writing books is endless, and much study wears you out.

¹³ That’s the whole story. Here now is my final conclusion: Fear God and obey his commands, for this is everyone’s duty. ¹⁴ God will judge us for everything we do, including every secret thing, whether good or bad.

Ecclesiastes 11

Ecclesiastes 11

The Uncertainties of Life

⁵ Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb,^[c] so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things.

⁶ Plant your seed in the morning and keep busy all afternoon, for you don’t know if profit will come from one activity or another—or maybe both.

Advice for Young and Old

⁷ Light is sweet; how pleasant to see a new day dawning.

⁸ When people live to be very old, let them rejoice in every day of life. But let them also remember there will be many dark days. Everything still to come is meaningless.

⁹ Young people,^[d] it’s wonderful to be young! Enjoy every minute of it. Do everything you want to do; take it all in. But remember that you must give an account to God for everything you do. ¹⁰ So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless.

Ecclesiastes 8

Ecclesiastes 8

Obedience to the King

² Obey the king since you vowed to God that you would. ³ Don’t try to avoid doing your duty, and don’t stand with those who plot evil, for the king can do whatever he wants. ⁴ His command is backed by great power. No one can resist or question it. ⁵ Those who obey him will not be punished. Those who are wise will find a time and a way to do what is right, ⁶ for there is a time and a way for everything, even when a person is in trouble.

⁷ Indeed, how can people avoid what they don’t know is going to happen? ⁸ None of us can hold back our spirit from departing. None of us has the power to prevent the day of our death. There is no escaping that obligation, that dark battle. And in the face of death, wickedness will certainly not rescue the wicked.

The Wicked and the Righteous

⁹ I have thought deeply about all that goes on here under the sun, where people have the power to hurt each other. ¹⁰ I have seen wicked people buried with honor. Yet they were the very ones who frequented the Temple and are now praised^[a] in the same city where they committed their crimes! This, too, is meaningless. ¹¹ When a crime is not punished quickly, people feel it is safe to do wrong. ¹² But even though a person sins a hundred times and still lives a long time, I know that those who fear God will be better off. ¹³ The wicked will not prosper, for they do not fear God. Their days will never grow long like the evening shadows.

¹⁴ And this is not all that is meaningless in our world. In this life, good people are often treated as though they were wicked, and wicked people are often treated as though they were good. This is so meaningless!

¹⁵ So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life. That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them under the sun.

¹⁶ In my search for wisdom and in my observation of people’s burdens here on earth, I discovered that there is ceaseless activity, day and night. ¹⁷ I realized that no one can discover everything God is doing under the sun. Not even the wisest people discover everything, no matter what they claim.

Ecclesiastes 7

Ecclesiastes 7

Wisdom for Life

The Limits of Human Wisdom

¹⁵ I have seen everything in this meaningless life, including the death of good young people and the long life of wicked people. ¹⁶ So don’t be too good or too wise! Why destroy yourself? ¹⁷ On the other hand, don’t be too wicked either. Don’t be a fool! Why die before your time? ¹⁸ Pay attention to these instructions, for anyone who fears God will avoid both extremes.^[a]

¹⁹ One wise person is stronger than ten leading citizens of a town!

²⁰ Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.

²¹ Don’t eavesdrop on others—you may hear your servant curse you. ²² For you know how often you yourself have cursed others.

²³ I have always tried my best to let wisdom guide my thoughts and actions. I said to myself, “I am determined to be wise.” But it didn’t work. ²⁴ Wisdom is always distant and difficult to find. ²⁵ I searched everywhere, determined to find wisdom and to understand the reason for things. I was determined to prove to myself that wickedness is stupid and that foolishness is madness.

²⁶ I discovered that a seductive woman^[b] is a trap more bitter than death. Her passion is a snare, and her soft hands are chains. Those who are pleasing to God will escape her, but sinners will be caught in her snare.

²⁷ “This is my conclusion,” says the Teacher. “I discovered this after looking at the matter from every possible angle. ²⁸ Though I have searched repeatedly, I have not found what I was looking for. Only one out of a thousand men is virtuous, but not one woman! ²⁹ But I did find this: God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path.”

Transgender or Transvestite My Thoughts

Transgender or Transvestite My Thoughts

Ecclesiastes 5

Ecclesiastes 5

Approaching God with Care

1 ^[a]As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. It is evil to make mindless offerings to God. ^2 [b]Don’t make rash promises, and don’t be hasty in bringing matters before God. After all, God is in heaven, and you are here on earth. So let your words be few.

³ Too much activity gives you restless dreams; too many words make you a fool.

⁴ When you make a promise to God, don’t delay in following through, for God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make to him. ⁵ It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it. ⁶ Don’t let your mouth make you sin. And don’t defend yourself by telling the Temple messenger that the promise you made was a mistake. That would make God angry, and he might wipe out everything you have achieved.

⁷ Talk is cheap, like daydreams and other useless activities. Fear God instead.

The Futility of Wealth

⁸ Don’t be surprised if you see a poor person being oppressed by the powerful and if justice is being miscarried throughout the land. For every official is under orders from higher up, and matters of justice get lost in red tape and bureaucracy. ⁹ Even the king milks the land for his own profit!^[c]

¹⁰ Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! ¹¹ The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!

¹² People who work hard sleep well, whether they eat little or much. But the rich seldom get a good night’s sleep.

¹³ There is another serious problem I have seen under the sun. Hoarding riches harms the saver. ¹⁴ Money is put into risky investments that turn sour, and everything is lost. In the end, there is nothing left to pass on to one’s children. ¹⁵ We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can’t take our riches with us.

¹⁶ And this, too, is a very serious problem. People leave this world no better off than when they came. All their hard work is for nothing—like working for the wind. ¹⁷ Throughout their lives, they live under a cloud—frustrated, discouraged, and angry.

¹⁸ Even so, I have noticed one thing, at least, that is good. It is good for people to eat, drink, and enjoy their work under the sun during the short life God has given them, and to accept their lot in life. ¹⁹ And it is a good thing to receive wealth from God and the good health to enjoy it. To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God. ²⁰ God keeps such people so busy enjoying life that they take no time to brood over the past.

Shabbat Shalom, here is the Torah reading for Today,
Deut 29:9-30:20
Isaiah 61:10-63:9
John 12:41-50

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Ecclesiastes 3

Ecclesiastes 3 

A Time for Everything

⁹ What do people really get for all their hard work? ¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. ¹¹ Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. ¹² So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. ¹³ And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.

¹⁴ And I know that whatever God does is final. Nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God’s purpose is that people should fear him. ¹⁵ What is happening now has happened before, and what will happen in the future has happened before, because God makes the same things happen over and over again.

The Injustices of Life

¹⁶ I also noticed that under the sun there is evil in the courtroom. Yes, even the courts of law are corrupt! ¹⁷ I said to myself, “In due season God will judge everyone, both good and bad, for all their deeds.”

¹⁸ I also thought about the human condition—how God proves to people that they are like animals. ¹⁹ For people and animals share the same fate—both breathe^[a] and both must die. So people have no real advantage over the animals. How meaningless! ²⁰ Both go to the same place—they came from dust and they return to dust. ²¹ For who can prove that the human spirit goes up and the spirit of animals goes down into the earth? ²² So I saw that there is nothing better for people than to be happy in their work. That is our lot in life. And no one can bring us back to see what happens after we die.

Transgender dolls, nothing new under the sun

Transgender dolls, nothing new under the sun

Ecclesiastes 2

Ecclesiastes 2

The Futility of Pleasure

2 I said to myself, “Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the ‘good things’ in life.” But I found that this, too, was meaningless. ² So I said, “Laughter is silly. What good does it do to seek pleasure?” ³ After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. In this way, I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during their brief life in this world.

⁴ I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. ⁵ I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees. ⁶ I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. ⁷ I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. ⁸ I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire!

⁹ So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me, and my wisdom never failed me. ¹⁰ Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. ¹¹ But as I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish, it was all so meaningless—like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.

The Wise and the Foolish

¹² So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness (for who can do this better than I, the king?^[a]). ¹³ I thought, “Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness. ¹⁴ For the wise can see where they are going, but fools walk in the dark.” Yet I saw that the wise and the foolish share the same fate. ¹⁵ Both will die. So I said to myself, “Since I will end up the same as the fool, what’s the value of all my wisdom? This is all so meaningless!” ¹⁶ For the wise and the foolish both die. The wise will not be remembered any longer than the fool. In the days to come, both will be forgotten.

¹⁷ So I came to hate life because everything done here under the sun is so troubling. Everything is meaningless—like chasing the wind.

The Futility of Work

¹⁸ I came to hate all my hard work here on earth, for I must leave to others everything I have earned. ¹⁹ And who can tell whether my successors will be wise or foolish? Yet they will control everything I have gained by my skill and hard work under the sun. How meaningless! ²⁰ So I gave up in despair, questioning the value of all my hard work in this world.

²¹ Some people work wisely with knowledge and skill, then must leave the fruit of their efforts to someone who hasn’t worked for it. This, too, is meaningless, a great tragedy. ²² So what do people get in this life for all their hard work and anxiety? ²³ Their days of labor are filled with pain and grief; even at night their minds cannot rest. It is all meaningless.

²⁴ So I decided there is nothing better than to enjoy food and drink and to find satisfaction in work. Then I realized that these pleasures are from the hand of God. ²⁵ For who can eat or enjoy anything apart from him?^[b] 26 God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy to those who please him. But if a sinner becomes wealthy, God takes the wealth away and gives it to those who please him. This, too, is meaningless—like chasing the wind.