1Watch your step when you go to the house of God. Be readier to listen than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.
2Do not be quick with your mouth, and do not let your heart hurry to say anything before God. God is in heaven, and you are on earth. So let your words be few.
3A dream comes from having too much to do, and a fool's voice is known by too many words.
4When you make a promise to God, do not wait to keep it, for he takes no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have promised.
5It is better not to promise at all than to promise and not pay.
6Do not let your mouth make your body sin. Do not say before the angel that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?
7For in many dreams and many words there are many empty things. But you must fear God.
8If you see the poor being crushed, and judgment and justice twisted by force in a province, do not be surprised at it. For the one who is higher than the highest is watching, and there are higher ones above them.
9Also, the profit of the earth is for everyone. Even the king is served by the field.
10Whoever loves silver will never have enough silver. Whoever loves plenty will never have enough gain. This too is empty.
11When goods increase, so do the people who eat them. And what good is that to the owners, except to look at them with their eyes?
12The sleep of a working man is sweet, whether he eats little or much. But the rich man's plenty will not let him sleep.
13There is a painful evil I have seen under the sun: riches kept by their owners, and it harms them.
14Those riches are lost through some bad venture. Then he has a son, and there is nothing in his hand.
15He came out of his mother's womb, and naked he will go back as he came. He will take nothing from his work that he can carry away in his hand.
16This too is a painful evil: in every way that he came, so he goes. What profit has he who has worked for the wind?
17All his days he also eats in darkness, and he has much sorrow and anger, along with his sickness.
18Look at what I have seen: it is good and fitting for a person to eat and drink, and to enjoy the good of all the work he does under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him. For that is his portion.
19And when God has given anyone riches and wealth, and the power to eat of them, and to take his portion, and to be glad in his work, this is the gift of God.
20He will not think much about the days of his life, because God keeps his heart full of joy.