| New International Version | New Living Translation |
| 1Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things? A person's wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance. | 1How wonderful to be wise, to analyze and interpret things. Wisdom lights up a person’s face, softening its harshness. Obedience to the King |
| 2Obey the king's command, I say, because you took an oath before God. | 2Obey the king since you vowed to God that you would. |
| 3Do not be in a hurry to leave the king's presence. Do not stand up for a bad cause, for he will do whatever he pleases. | 3Don’t try to avoid doing your duty, and don’t stand with those who plot evil, for the king can do whatever he wants. |
| 4Since a king's word is supreme, who can say to him, "What are you doing?" | 4His command is backed by great power. No one can resist or question it. |
| 5Whoever obeys his command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure. | 5Those who obey him will not be punished. Those who are wise will find a time and a way to do what is right, |
| 6For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery. | 6for there is a time and a way for everything, even when a person is in trouble. |
| 7Since no one knows the future, who can tell someone else what is to come? | 7Indeed, how can people avoid what they don’t know is going to happen? |
| 8As no one has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has power over the time of their death. As no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it. | 8None 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 |
| 9All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt. | 9I have thought deeply about all that goes on here under the sun, where people have the power to hurt each other. |
| 10Then too, I saw the wicked buried--those who used to come and go from the holy place and receive praise in the city where they did this. This too is meaningless. | 10I have seen wicked people buried with honor. Yet they were the very ones who frequented the Temple and are now praised in the same city where they committed their crimes! This, too, is meaningless. |
| 11When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people's hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. | 11When a crime is not punished quickly, people feel it is safe to do wrong. |
| 12Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. | 12But 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. |
| 13Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow. | 13The wicked will not prosper, for they do not fear God. Their days will never grow long like the evening shadows. |
| 14There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. | 14And 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! |
| 15So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun. | 15So 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. |
| 16When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth--people getting no sleep day or night-- | 16In 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. |
| 17then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it. | 17I 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. |
| New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. | Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. |
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