Ecclesiastes 6:2
Good News Translation
God will give us wealth, honor, and property, yes, everything we want, but then will not let us enjoy it. Some stranger will enjoy it instead. It is useless, and it just isn't right.

New Revised Standard Version
those to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that they lack nothing of all that they desire, yet God does not enable them to enjoy these things, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous ill.

Contemporary English Version
God may give you everything you want--money, property, and wealth. Then God doesn't let you enjoy it, and someone you don't even know gets it all. That's senseless and terribly unfair!

New American Bible
There is one to whom God gives riches and property and honor, and who lacks nothing the heart could desire; yet God does not grant the power to partake of them, but a stranger devours them. This is vanity and a dire plague.

Douay-Rheims Bible
A man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and honour, and his soul wanteth nothing of all that he desireth: yet God doth not give him power to eat thereof, but a stranger shall eat it up. This is vanity and a great misery.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and honour, and his soul wanteth nothing of all that he desireth: yet God doth not give him power to eat thereof, but a stranger shall eat it up. This is vanity and a great misery.

a man

Ecclesiastes 5:19 And every man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to enjoy his portion, and to rejoice of his labour: this is the gift of God.

1 Kings 3:13 Yea, and the things also which thou didst not ask, I have given thee; to wit, riches and glory: so that no one hath been like thee among the kings in all days heretofore.

1 Chronicles 29:25,28 And the Lord magnified Solomon over all Israel: and gave him the glory of a reign, such as no king of Israel had before him. . . .

2 Chronicles 1:11 And God said to Solomon: Because this choice hath pleased thy heart, and thou hast not asked riches, and wealth, and glory, nor the lives of them that hate thee, nor many days of life: but hast asked wisdom and knowledge, to be able to judge my people, over which I have made thee king,

Daniel 5:18 O king, the most high God gave to Nabuchodonosor, thy father, a kingdom, and greatness, and glory, and honour.

Songs 2:4-10 He brought me into the cellar of wine, he set in order charity in me. . . .

Deuteronomy 8:7-10 For the Lord thy God will bring thee into a good land, of brooks and of waters, and of fountains: in the plains of which and the hills deep rivers break out: . . .

Judges 18:10 We shall come to a people that is secure, into a spacious country, and the Lord will deliver the place to us, in which there is no want of any thing that groweth on the earth.

Job 21:9-15 Their houses are secure and peaceable, and the rod of God is not upon them. . . .

Psalm 17:14 From the enemies of thy hand. O Lord, divide them from the few of the earth in their life: their belly is filled from thy hidden stores. They are full of children: and they have left to their little ones the rest of their substance.

Psalm 73:7 Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.

Luke 12:19,20 And I will say to my soul: Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thy rest: eat, drink, make good cheer. . . .

yet

Deuteronomy 28:33,43 May a people which thou knowest not, eat the fruits of thy land, and all thy labours: and mayst thou always suffer oppression, and be crushed at all times. . . .

Psalm 39:6 Surely man passeth as an image: yea, and he is disquieted in vain. He storeth up: and he knoweth not for whom he shall gather these things.

Lamentations 5:2 Our inheritance is turned to aliens: our houses to strangers.

Hosea 7:9 Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knew it not: yea, grey hairs also are spread about upon him, and he is ignorant of it.

vanity

Ecclesiastes 4:4,8 Again I considered all the labours of men, and I remarked that their industries are exposed to the envy of their neighbour: so in this also there is vanity, and fruitless care. . . .

Ecclesiastes 5:16 A most deplorable evil: as he came, so shall he return. What then doth it profit him that he hath laboured for the wind?

Context
The Futility of Life
1There is also another evil, which I have seen under the sun, and that frequent among men: 2A man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and honour, and his soul wanteth nothing of all that he desireth: yet God doth not give him power to eat thereof, but a stranger shall eat it up. This is vanity and a great misery.3If a man beget a hundred children, and live many years, and attain to a great age, and his soul make no use of the goods of his substance, and he be without burial: of this man I pronounce, that the untimely born is better than he.…
Cross References
1 Kings 3:13
Yea, and the things also which thou didst not ask, I have given thee; to wit, riches and glory: so that no one hath been like thee among the kings in all days heretofore.

Psalm 17:14
From the enemies of thy hand. O Lord, divide them from the few of the earth in their life: their belly is filled from thy hidden stores. They are full of children: and they have left to their little ones the rest of their substance.

Psalm 73:7
Their iniquity hath come forth, as it were from fatness: they have passed into the affection of the heart.

Ecclesiastes 2:10
And whatsoever my eyes desired, I refused them not: and I withheld not my heart from enjoying every pleasure, and delighting itself in the things which I had prepared: and esteemed this my portion, to make use of my own labour.

Ecclesiastes 5:13
There is also another grievous evil, which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the hurt of the owner.

Ecclesiastes 5:19
And every man to whom God hath given riches, and substance, and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to enjoy his portion, and to rejoice of his labour: this is the gift of God.

Isaiah 55:2
Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which doth not satisfy you? Hearken diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and your soul shall be delighted in fatness.

Ecclesiastes 6:1
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