CHAPTER 8
1Who is like the wise man, and who knows a word’s solution? A man’s wisdom lights up his face, and the impudence of his face transforms it. 2Keep a king’s utterance as though it concerned a vow to God. 3Do not be hasty. From his presence you should go. Do not persist in a bad business. 4For whatever he desires, he may do, since a king’s word is power, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?” 5He who keeps a command will know no evil thing, and the time of judgment a wise heart knows. 6For every happening has a time of judgment, for man’s evil is heavy upon him. 7For one knows not what will be, for what will be—who can tell of it? 8No man has power over the wind, to shut in the wind, and there is no power over the day of death, and there is no sending away from war, and wickedness will not make those who do it escape. 9All this have I seen and set my heart to all that is done under the sun, a time when man holds power over man to his harm. 10And so have I seen the wicked brought to the grave, and from a holy place they went forth, while those who did right were forgotten in the town. This, too, is mere breath. 11The sentence for an evil act is not carried out swiftly. Therefore the heart of the sons of men brims over within them to do evil. 12For the offender does evil a hundredfold and lives a long life, though I know, too, that it will be well with those who fear God, who fear His presence. 13And it will not be well with the wicked, and like a shadow, he will not live long, as he does not fear God’s presence. 14There is a thing of mere breath that is done on the earth—there are righteous to whom it befalls as though they did wickedly, and there are wicked to whom it befalls as though they did righteously. I said that this, too, is mere breath. 15And I praised merriment, for there is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to make merry, and that will attend him in all his toil in the days of his life that God gives him under the sun. 16When I set my heart to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, day and night my eyes saw no sleep. 17And I have seen every deed of God, that man cannot grasp the deed which is done under the sun, inasmuch as man toils to seek and cannot grasp it. And even if the wise means to know, he will not be able to grasp it.