Ecclesiastes 8:1-13 ▼

1 Who is as the wise man? and who knows the interpretation of a thing? a man's wisdom makes his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.

2 I counsel you to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God.

3 Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he does whatever pleases him.

4 Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say to him, What do you?

5 Whoever keeps the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment.

6 Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great on him.

7 For he knows not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?

8 There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.

9 All this have I seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man rules over another to his own hurt.

10 And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity.

11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

12 Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:

13 But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he fears not before God.