Ecclesiastes 9:12
Good News Translation
You never know when your time is coming. Like birds suddenly caught in a trap, like fish caught in a net, we are trapped at some evil moment when we least expect it.

New Revised Standard Version
For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them.

Contemporary English Version
None of us know when we might fall victim to a sudden disaster and find ourselves like fish in a net or birds in a trap.

New American Bible
Human beings no more know their own time than fish taken in the fatal net or birds trapped in the snare; like these, mortals are caught when an evil time suddenly falls upon them.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Man knoweth not his own end: but as fishes are taken with the hook, and as birds are caught with the snare, so men are taken in the evil time, when it shall suddenly come upon them.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

Man knoweth not his own end: but as fishes are taken with the hook, and as birds are caught with the snare, so men are taken in the evil time, when it shall suddenly come upon them.

man

Ecclesiastes 8:5-7,11 He that keepeth the commandment, shall find no evil. The heart of a wiser man understandeth time and answer. . . .

Luke 19:42-44 If thou also hadst known, and that in this thy day, the things that are to thy peace: but now they are hidden from thy eyes. . . .

2 Corinthians 6:2 For he saith: In an accepted time have I heard thee and in the day of salvation have I helped thee. Behold, now is the acceptable time: behold, now is the day of salvation.

1 Peter 2:12 Having your conversation good among the Gentiles: that whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by the good works which they shall behold in you, glorify God in the day of visitation.

as the fishes

Proverbs 7:22,23 Till the arrow pierce his liver: as if a bird should make haste to the snare, and knoweth not that his life is in danger. . . .

Habakkuk 1:14-17 And thou wilt make men as the fishes of the sea, and as the creeping things that have no ruler. . . .

2 Timothy 2:26 And they may recover themselves from the snares of the devil by whom they are held captive at his will.

the sons

Job 18:8-10 For he hath thrust his feet into a net, and walketh in its meshes. . . .

Psalm 11:6 The Lord trieth the just and the wicked: but he that loveth iniquity, hateth his own soul.

Psalm 73:18-20 But indeed for deceits thou hast put it to them: when they were lifted up thou hast cast them down. . . .

Proverbs 6:15 Six things there are, which the Lord hateth, and the seventh his soul detesteth:

Proverbs 29:6 A snare shall entangle the wicked man when he sinneth: and the just shall praise and rejoice.

Isaiah 30:13 Therefore shall this iniquity be to you as a breach that falleth, and is found wanting in a high wall, for the destruction thereof shall come on a sudden, when it is not looked for.

Luke 12:20,39 But God said to him: Thou fool, this night do they require thy soul of thee. And whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? . . .

Luke 17:26-31 And as it came to pass in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. . . .

Luke 21:34-36 And take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life: and that day come upon you suddenly. . . .

1 Thessalonians 5:3 For when they shall say: Peace and security; then shall sudden destruction come upon them, as the pains upon her that is with child, and they shall not escape.

2 Peter 2:12 But these men, as irrational beasts, naturally tending to the snare and to destruction, blaspheming those things which they know not, shall perish in their corruption:

Context
Enjoy Your Portion in This Life
11I turned me to another thing, and I saw that under the sun, the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the learned, nor favour to the skilful: but time and chance in all. 12Man knoweth not his own end: but as fishes are taken with the hook, and as birds are caught with the snare, so men are taken in the evil time, when it shall suddenly come upon them.
Cross References
Luke 21:34
And take heed to yourselves, lest perhaps your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life: and that day come upon you suddenly.

Luke 21:35
For as a snare shall it come upon all that sit upon the face of the whole earth.

Proverbs 7:23
Now, therefore, my son, hear me, and attend to the words of my mouth.

Proverbs 29:6
A snare shall entangle the wicked man when he sinneth: and the just shall praise and rejoice.

Ecclesiastes 3:19
Therefore the death of man, and of beasts is one, and the condition of them both is equal: as man dieth, so they also die: all things breathe alike, and man hath nothing more than beast: all things are subject to vanity.

Ecclesiastes 8:7
Because he is ignorant of things past, and things to come he cannot know by any messenger.

Ecclesiastes 9:13
This wisdom also I have seen under the sun, and it seemed to me to be very great:

Isaiah 24:18
And it shall come to pass, that he that shall flee from the noise of the fear, shall fall into the pit: and he that shall rid himself out of the pit, shall be taken in the snare: for the flood-gates from on high are opened, and the foundations of the earth shall be shaken.

Hosea 9:8
The watchman of Ephraim was with my God: the prophet is become a snare of ruin upon all his ways, madness is in the house of his God.

Ecclesiastes 9:11
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