All men face the same destiny
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📚✭For I considered all this in my heart to declare all of this: the righteous and the wise, and their deeds, are in the hand of God. No man knows whether there will be love or hatred in all that awaits him.2 📚✭All things come alike to all. The same event comes to the righteous and to the wicked, to the good and to the clean and to the unclean, to him who offers sacrifice and to him who does not offer sacrifice; as it is to the good, so to the sinner, and to him who takes an oath as to him who fears to take an oath.
3 📚✭This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is the same event to all. Moreover, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and afterwards they go to the dead.
4 📚For to him who is joined to all the living there is hope; for a live dog is better off than a dead lion.
5 📚For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything, nor do they any longer have a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 📚Also their love and their hatred and their envy have now perished; nor do they have any more share forever in anything that is done under the sun.
7 📚✭Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.
8 📚Let your garments be always white, and do not let your head lack oil.
9 📚Live joyfully with the wife whom you love, all the days of the life of your futility which he has given you under the sun, all the days of your futility; for that is your lot in this life, and in your labour at which you toil under the sun.
10 📚Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave✭ where you are going.
11 📚✭Again, I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong; nor is bread to the wise or riches to men of understanding or favour to men of skill, but time and chance happens to them all.
12 📚Also man does not know when his time will come; like fish caught in a harmful net and like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are ensnared in a bad time, when it suddenly falls on them.
An example of wisdom
13 📚✭Also I have seen this wisdom under the sun, and it seemed great to me:
14 📚There was a little town and few men in it; and there came a great king against it and besieged it, and built great siege works against it.
15 📚Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and by his wisdom he delivered the city. But no one remembered that poor man.
16 📚Then I said, “Wisdom is better than strength”. Nevertheless the poor man’s wisdom was despised, and his words were not heeded.
Words on wisdom and folly
17 📚The words of wise men in quiet are to be heard more than the shout of the one who rules over fools.
18 📚Wisdom is better than weapons of war; but one sinner destroys much good.