Obedience to the King and to God (8:1-17)


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

² I counsel thee 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 doeth whatsoever [all which] pleaseth him.
⁴ Where the word of a king is,
there is power:
and who may say unto him, What doest thou?
⁵ Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing:
and man's heart discerneth both time and judgment.

⁶ Because to every purpose there is time and judgment,
therefore the misery of man is great upon him.
⁷ For he knoweth not that which shall be:
for who can tell him when it shall be?
⁸ There is no man that hath power over the spirit
to retain [this] the spirit;
neither hath he power in the day of death:
and there is no discharge in that war;
neither shall wickedness deliver [these] -- those that are given to it.

⁹ All this have I seen,
and applied [it to this] my heart
unto every work that is done under the sun:
there is a time wherein one man ruleth 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 [upon this] 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 [the face of] him:
¹³ But it shall not be well with the wicked,
neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow;
because he feareth not before [the face of] God.

¹⁴ There is a vanity
which is done upon the earth;
that there be just men,
unto whom it happeneth according to the work of the wicked;
again, there be wicked men,
to whom it happeneth according to the work of the righteous:

I said that
this also is vanity.

¹⁵ Then I commended [this] mirth,
because a man hath no better thing under the sun,
than [lo!] to eat, and to drink, and to be merry:
for that shall abide with him of his labour the days of his life,
which God giveth him
under the sun.

¹⁶ When I applied [this] mine heart to know wisdom,
and to see [this] the business that is done upon the earth:
(for also there is that neither day nor night
seeth sleep with his eyes:)
¹⁷ Then I beheld [this] all the work of God
that a man cannot find [not is able to find out] [this]
the work that is done under the sun:
because though a man labour to seek it out,
yet he shall not find it;
yea further;
though a wise man think to know it,
yet shall he not be able to find it.