3:1 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
3:2 a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3:3 a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,
3:4 a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,
3:5 a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
3:6 a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,
3:7 a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,
3:8 a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
3:9 What do workers gain from their toil?
3:10 I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.
3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet* no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. / *Or also placed ignorance in the human heart, so that
3:12 I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.
3:13 That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God.
3:14 I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.
3:15 Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account.* / *Or God calls back the past
3:16 And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment - wickedness was there, in the place of justice - wickedness was there.
3:17 I said to myself, “God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.”
3:18 I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.
3:19 Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath*; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. / *Or spirit
3:20 All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
3:21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
3:22 So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?