Obey the King

1Who is like the wise one, and who knows the interpretation of a thing? The wisdom of a man makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.

2I say: The mouth of a king you must keep, even for the sake of the oath of God. 3Do not hurry to depart from his face; do not stand in an evil matter, for all that he delights in, he will do. 4Where the word of a king is, power is, and who can say to him, “What are you doing?”

5The one guarding a command will not know an evil thing, and the heart of a wise one knows a time and a judgment. 6For to every delight there is a time and a judgment, though the misery of man is great upon him. 7Indeed, he is not knowing what will happen; for when it will be, who can declare it to him?

8No man is masterful over the wind to restrain the wind, and no one has mastery over the day of his death. And there is no discharge in the battle, and wickedness will not deliver its possessors. 9All this I have seen, so as to give my heart to every work that is done the under sun; a time that man has ruled over man, for evil unto himself.

Fear God
(Isaiah 8:11–15)

10And in this I have seen the wicked ones being buried, and they went in, even from the place of holiness they walked, and they were praised† in the city where thus they had done. This also is vapor. 11Because an edict is not made on the evil work swiftly, upon thus the heart of the sons of man is fully set in them to do evil.

12Though a sinner does evil a hundred times and it is prolonged to him still, surely I know that there is good for those fearing God, who fear from before His face. 13But it shall not be good for the wicked, and he will not prolong the days like a shadow, because he is not fearing before the face of God.

God’s Ways Are Mysterious

14There is a vapor that occurs on the earth: That there are righteous ones for whom it touches them according to the work of the wicked, and there are wicked for whom it touches them according to the work of the righteous. I have said this also is vapor.

15And I have praised the enjoyment, because nothing is good for a man under the sun, except than to eat and to drink and to be joyful, for only this will accompany him in his toil during the days of his life that God has given to him under the sun.

16When I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to see the task that is done on earth—for even he is not seeing sleep with his eyes in the day and in the night— 17and I saw all the work of God, that man is not able to find out the work that is done under the sun in that to which man might toil to seek it, and he will not find it; and even though the wise one claims to know it, he is not able to find it.