EC-5:1  Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and

be more ready

to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider

not that they

do evil.

EC-5:2  Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be

hasty to utter

[any] thing before God: for God [is] in heaven, and thou upon

earth: therefore

let thy words be few.

EC-5:3  For a dream cometh through the multitude of business;

and a fool's

voice [is known] by multitude of words.

EC-5:4  When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it;

for [he hath] no

pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.

EC-5:5  Better [is it] that thou shouldest not vow, than that

thou shouldest

vow and not pay.

EC-5:6  Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither

say thou

before the angel, that it [was] an error: wherefore should God

be angry at thy

voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?

EC-5:7  For in the multitude of dreams and many words [there

are] also

[divers] vanities: but fear thou God.

EC-5:8  If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent

perverting of

judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter:

for [he that is]

higher than the highest regardeth; and [there be] higher than

they.

EC-5:9  Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king

[himself] is

served by the field.

EC-5:10  He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with

silver; nor he that

loveth abundance with increase: this [is] also vanity.

EC-5:11  When goods increase, they are increased that eat them:

and what good

[is there] to the owners thereof, saving the beholding [of them]

with their

eyes?

EC-5:12  The sleep of a labouring man [is] sweet, whether he eat

little or

much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

EC-5:13  There is a sore evil [which] I have seen under the sun,

[namely],

riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.

EC-5:14  But those riches perish by evil travail: and he

begetteth a son, and

[there is] nothing in his hand.

EC-5:15  As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he

return to go as

he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may

carry away in his

hand.

EC-5:16  And this also [is] a sore evil, [that] in all points as

he came, so

shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the

wind?

EC-5:17  All his days also he eateth in darkness, and [he hath]

much sorrow

and wrath with his sickness.

EC-5:18  Behold [that] which I have seen: [it is] good and

comely [for one] to

eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labour that

he taketh under

the sun all the days of his life, which God giveth him: for it

[is] his

portion.

EC-5:19  Every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth,

 and hath

given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion, and to

rejoice in his

labour; this [is] the gift of God.

EC-5:20  For he shall not much remember the days of his life;

because God

answereth [him] in the joy of his heart.

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