Kohelet - Chapter 5

1. Be not rash with your mouth, and let your heart not be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you are on the earth; therefore, let your words be few.

2. For a dream comes with much concern, and the voice of the fool with many words.

3. When you pronounce a vow to God, do not delay to pay, for He has no pleasure in fools; that which you vow, pay.

4. It is better that you vow not, than that you vow and do not pay it.

5. Do not allow your mouth to cause sin to your flesh, and say not before the messenger that it is an error; why should God be wroth with your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

6. For despite many dreams and vanities and many words, only fear God.

7. If you see oppression of the poor and deprivation of justice and righteousness in the province, wonder not about the matter, for the Highest over the high waits, and there are higher ones over them.

8. And the loftiness of the earth is in everything; even the King is subservient to the field.

9. Whoever loves silver will not be sated with silver, and he who loves a multitude without increase-this too is vanity.

10. With the increase of good, its eaters increase, and what is the advantage to its Master, except seeing [with] His eyes?

11. The sleep of the laborer is sweet, whether he eat little or much, but the satiety of the rich does not allow him to sleep.

12. There is a grievous evil that I saw under the sun; riches kept by their owner for his harm.

13. And those riches are lost through an evil design, and he will beget a son who will have nothing in his hand.

14. As he left his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and he will carry nothing with his toil, that he will take in his hand.

15. And this too is a grievous evil, that just as it came so shall it go, and what advantage does he have that he toil for the wind?

16. Also all his days he eats in the dark, and he has much vexation and sickness and wrath.

17. Behold what I saw; it is good, yea, it is beautiful, to eat and drink and to experience goodness with all his toil that he toils under the sun, the number of the days of his life that God gave him, for that is his portion.

18. Also every man whom God has given riches and property and has given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice with his toil; that is a gift of God.

19. For let him remember that the days of his life are not many, for God is testimony of the joy of his heart.