A time for everything
3
📚✭To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven: 2 📚A time to be born and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
3 📚A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up;
4 📚A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance;
5 📚A time to throw stones away, and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 📚A time to get and a time to lose; a time to search and a time to give up;
7 📚A time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep silent and a time to speak;
8 📚A time to love and a time to hate; a time of war and a time of peace.
Time compared with eternity
9 📚What profit does the worker have from that in which he labours?
10 📚✭I have seen the task God has given to exercise the sons of men.
11 📚He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has set eternity in their heart, yet no man can find out the work that God has done from beginning to end.
12 📚I know that there is nothing better for them than for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life,
13 📚And also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good results of all his labour; it is the gift of God.
14 📚✭I know that whatever God does, it will be forever; nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken away from it; and God does it so that men will fear in his presence.
Thoughts of God’s judgment
15 📚That which has been, still is, and that which is to be has already been; and God requires what is past✭.
16 📚✭And, moreover, under the sun I saw the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
17 📚I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work”.
Of animals and men
18 📚✭I said in my heart concerning the matter of the sons of men, that God tests them that they might see that they are like beasts.
19 📚For what happens to the sons of men happens to beasts; the same thing happens to them. The one dies just as the other dies; yes, they all have the same breath, so that a man has no advantage over a beast; for all is emptiness.
20 📚All go to one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again.
21 📚Who knows the spirit of man which goes upward, and the spirit of the beast which goes downward to the earth?
22 📚Therefore I saw that there is nothing better than that a man rejoice in his own works; for that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will be after him?