ECCLESIASTES 5

Be careful about making promises

1 When you enter God’s temple, you should be sure to listen carefully. Doing that is better than offering sacrifices to God and then not obeying him, which is foolish.

2 Think carefully before you speak [MTY]

or before you promise God that you will do something [IDM].

Do not forget that God is in heaven and he is all-powerful

and you are here on the earth,

so think carefully before you make any promises to God.

3 If you are continually thinking and worrying about things,

you will have bad dreams about them and not rest well.

And the more you talk,

the more likely it will be that you will say things that are foolish.

4 When you solemnly promise God that you will do something, do not be foolish by delaying in doing it, because God is not pleased with foolish people. Do all the things that you promise God that you will do. 5 It is better to not promise anything than to promise to do something, and then not doing it. 6 Do not sin by promising to do something and then not doing it. And when you promise God to do something and do not do it, do not say to God’s priest that it was a mistake for you to promise to do that. If you do that, God will certainly [RHQ] become very angry with you, and he will take from you everything that you [SYN] have worked to acquire. 7 Promising to do something and not doing it is like [SIM] a dream that has no value; instead, revere God by doing what you promised him that you would do.

Officials cheat each other

8 Do not be surprised if you see poor people being ◄oppressed/treated cruelly► by powerful/influential people, or if you see judges making unjust decisions throughout the land. That happens because the people who do that are supervised and cheated by more important officials [DOU], 9 and even the king forces the people to give him some of the crops that they harvest.

The futility of wealth

10 Everyone who tries to get as much money as they can

will never think that they have enough.

They will never be satisfied with the money that they have.

That also is senseless.

11 The more money that we have,

the more people want us to spend our money to buy things for them.

So people who have a lot of money do not [RHQ] benefit from it;

they see [MTY] it when they get it, but it soon ◄disappears/is completely spent►.

12 Those who work hard sleep peacefully at night,

even if they do not have much food to eat.

But rich people do not sleep well,

because they worry about their money.

13 I have seen another terrible thing that happens here on the earth [MTY]:

People save up all their money and become rich,

but they are not helped by saving a lot of money,

14 because something happens that causes their money to be gone,

and when they die,

there is no money for their children to get/inherit.

15 When we are born,

we do not bring anything with us,

and when we die,

we take nothing with us

from all that we have earned by our working hard.

16 That also seems senseless.

People bring nothing into the world when they are born,

and they leave this world taking nothing with them.

They have worked hard,

but they receive no lasting benefit [MET].

17 Furthermore, rich people are always miserable [MET] and sad,

and depressed/discouraged and often sick and ◄resentful/thinking that what has happened to them is unfair►.

18 So, the best thing for people to do here on the earth during the few years that God allows them to be alive is to eat and drink and to enjoy their work, because those are the things that God has given to them. 19 If people are rich and have a lot of possessions, and are able to ◄enjoy/be happy with► the things that they have and to enjoy their work, those things are also gifts from God. 20 Those people do not worry much about everything that has happened during the time that they have been alive, because God enables them to be happy doing everything that they do.

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