Ecclesiastes 2:23
Good News Translation
As long as you live, everything you do brings nothing but worry and heartache. Even at night your mind can't rest. It is all useless.

New Revised Standard Version
For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.

Contemporary English Version
Our bodies ache during the day, and work is torture. Then at night our thoughts are troubled. It just doesn't make sense.

New American Bible
Every day sorrow and grief are their occupation; even at night their hearts are not at rest. This also is vanity.

Douay-Rheims Bible
All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?

all

Genesis 47:9 He answered: The days of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years, few, and evil, and they are not come up to the days of the pilgrimage of my fathers.

Job 5:7 Man is born to labour, and the bird to fly.

Job 14:1 Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries.

Psalm 90:7-10,15 For in thy wrath we have fainted away: and are troubled in thy indignation. . . .

Psalm 127:2 It is vain for you to rise before light, rise ye after you have sitten, you that eat the bread of sorrow. When he shall give sleep to his beloved,

his heart

Ecclesiastes 5:12 Sleep is sweet to a labouring man, whether he eat little or much: but the fulness of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

Esther 6:1 That night the king passed without sleep, and he commanded the histories and chronicles of former times to be brought him. And when they were reading them before him,

Job 7:13,14 If I say: My bed shall comfort me, and I shall be relieved, speaking with myself on my couch: . . .

Psalm 6:6,7 I have laboured in my groanings, every night I will wash my bed: I will water my couch with my tears. . . .

Psalm 32:4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: I am turned in my anguish, whilst the thorn is fastened.

Psalm 77:2-4 In the days of my trouble I sought God, with my hands lifted up to him in the night, and I was not deceived. My soul refused to be comforted: . . .

Daniel 6:18 And the king went away to his house, and laid himself down without taking supper, and meat was not set before him, and even sleep departed from him.

Acts 14:22 Confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith: and that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.

Context
The Futility of Work
22For what profit shall a man have of all his labour, and vexation of spirit, with which he hath been tormented under the sun? 23All his days are full of sorrows and miseries, even in the night he doth not rest in mind: and is not this vanity?24Is it not better to eat and drink, and to shew his soul good things of his labours? and this is from the hand of God.…
Cross References
Genesis 3:17
And to Adam he said: Because thou hast hearkened to the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee, that thou shouldst not eat, cursed is the earth in thy work: with labour and toil shalt thou eat thereof all the days of thy life.

Job 5:7
Man is born to labour, and the bird to fly.

Job 14:1
Man born of a woman, living for a short time, is filled with many miseries.

Psalm 127:2
It is vain for you to rise before light, rise ye after you have sitten, you that eat the bread of sorrow. When he shall give sleep to his beloved,

Ecclesiastes 1:13
And I proposed in my mind to seek and search out wisely concerning all things that are done under the sun. This painful occupation hath God given to the children of men, to be exercised therein.

Ecclesiastes 1:18
Because in much wisdom there is much indignation: and he that addeth knowledge, addeth also labour.

Ecclesiastes 2:11
And when I turned myself to all the works which my hands had wrought, and to the labours wherein I had laboured in vain, I saw in all things vanity, and vexation of mind, and that nothing was lasting under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 5:17
All the days of his life he eateth in darkness, and in many cares, and in misery, and sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 8:16
And I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to understand the distraction that is upon earth: for there are some that day and night take no sleep with their eyes.

Ecclesiastes 2:22
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