Ecclesiastes 9

Ecclesiastes Chapter 9 KJV

1Like things happen on earth to good and bad men. 4With the living is hope, but the dead have no more concern with this world. 7An exhortation cheerfully to enjoy the goods of life, and to act with vigour, while the time serveth. 11Human probabilities are not always justified by the event. 13Wisdom is better than strength.
1 For 1all this aI considered in my heart even to declare all this, 2that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: 3no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
2 1All things come alike to all: there is 2one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
3 1This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: 2yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, 3and after that they go to the dead.
4 1For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: 2for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
5 1For the living know that they shall die: but 2the dead know not any thing, 3neither have they any more a reward; 4for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 1Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.
7 1Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
8 Let thy 1garments be always white; and let thy head lack no ointment.
9 aLive joyfully with 1the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the 2life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: 3for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun.
10 1Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; 2for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.
11 1I returned, and saw under the sun, that 2the race is not to the swift, nor 3the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; 4but time and chance happeneth to them all.
12 For 1man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men 2snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.
13 ¶ This wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and 1it seemed great unto me:
14 there was a little city, and few men within it; and there came a great king against it, and besieged it, and built great bulwarks against it:
15 Now there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city; yet no man remembered that same poor man.
16 Then 1said I, Wisdom is better than strength: 2nevertheless the poor man's wisdom is despised, and his words are not heard.
17 1The words of wise men are heard in quiet more than the cry of him that ruleth among fools.
18 1Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but 2one sinner destroyeth much good.
Ecclesiastes 9