Ecclesiastes 5:16

But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well.

Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it is the wellspring of life.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

For what does a man have of all his labor and of the striving of his heart, in which he labors under the sun?

“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” says Yahweh.

For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.

Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.

This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

Why do you spend money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which doesn’t satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in richness.

“What value does the engraved image have, that its maker has engraved it; the molten image, even the teacher of lies, that he who fashions its form trusts in it, to make mute idols?

For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?

Now the sons of Eli were wicked men. They didn’t know Yahweh.

from men by your hand, Yahweh, from men of the world, whose portion is in this life. You fill the belly of your cherished ones. Your sons have plenty, and they store up wealth for their children.

But the humble shall inherit the land, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

He who troubles his own house shall inherit the wind. The foolish shall be servant to the wise of heart.

He who sows wickedness reaps trouble, and the rod of his fury will be destroyed.

What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?

Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God.

They are vanity, a work of delusion. In the time of their visitation they will perish.

Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, the nations will come to you from the ends of the earth, and will say, “Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, vanity and things in which there is no profit.

“I have seen folly in the prophets of Samaria. They prophesied by Baal, and caused my people Israel to err.

Those who regard lying vanities forsake their own mercy.

He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

“Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God, who made the sky, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them;

Lot went out, and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters, and said, “Get up! Get out of this place, for Yahweh will destroy the city!” But he seemed to his sons-in-law to be joking.

God dealt well with the midwives, and the people multiplied, and grew very mighty.

I have also given you that which you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that there will not be any among the kings like you for all your days.

Satan answered Yahweh, and said, “Skin for skin. Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.

“Can a man be profitable to God? Surely he who is wise is profitable to himself.

for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory won’t descend after him.

Their eyes bulge with fat. Their minds pass the limits of conceit.

“Come, eat some of my bread, Drink some of the wine which I have mixed!

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy on men:

All this I have seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing.

Tell the righteous “Good!” For they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.

In the day of your planting, you hedge it in. In the morning, you make your seed blossom, but the harvest flees away in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.

The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own authority; and my people love to have it so. What will you do in the end of it?

For the shepherds have become brutish, and have not inquired of Yahweh. Therefore they have not prospered, and all their flocks have scattered.

Her priests have done violence to my law, and have profaned my holy things. They have made no distinction between the holy and the common, neither have they caused men to discern between the unclean and the clean, and have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths. So I am profaned among them.

“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and tell them, even the shepherds, ‘The Lord Yahweh says: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Shouldn’t the shepherds feed the sheep?

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap according to kindness. Break up your fallow ground; for it is time to seek Yahweh, until he comes and rains righteousness on you.

You have sown much, and bring in little. You eat, but you don’t have enough. You drink, but you aren’t filled with drink. You clothe yourselves, but no one is warm, and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.”

For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his life? Or what will a man give in exchange for his life?

But seek God’s Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you.

This is the will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son, and believes in him, should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

For he received from God the Father honor and glory when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

But Lot’s wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

But the midwives feared God, and didn’t do what the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the baby boys alive.

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God. They have provoked me to anger with their vanities. I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people. I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation.

for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities.

According to what I have seen, those who plow iniquity, and sow trouble, reap the same.

So are the ways of everyone who is greedy for gain. It takes away the life of its owners.

The labor of the righteous leads to life. The increase of the wicked leads to sin.

In all hard work there is profit, but the talk of the lips leads only to poverty.

Don’t weary yourself to be rich. In your wisdom, show restraint.

What profit has he who works in that in which he labors?

I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever. Nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; and God has done it, that men should fear before him.

For in the multitude of dreams there are vanities, as well as in many words; but you must fear God.

It is good that you should take hold of this. Yes, also don’t withdraw your hand from that; for he who fears God will come out of them all.

All this I have seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.

“Assemble yourselves and come. Draw near together, you who have escaped from the nations. Those have no knowledge who carry the wood of their engraved image, and pray to a god that can’t save.

They bear it on their shoulder. They carry it, and set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. Yes, one may cry to it, yet it can not answer. It cannot save him out of his trouble.

Yahweh says, “What unrighteousness have your fathers found in me, that they have gone far from me, and have walked after worthless vanity, and have become worthless?

Strangers have devoured his strength, and he doesn’t realize it. Indeed, gray hairs are here and there on him, and he doesn’t realize it.

You have plowed wickedness. You have reaped iniquity. You have eaten the fruit of lies, for you trusted in your way, in the multitude of your mighty men.

Then the King will tell those on his right hand, ‘Come, blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;

but one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her.”

“Now there was a certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, living in luxury every day.

The beggar died, and he was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died, and was buried.

They will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.

But according to your hardness and unrepentant heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath, revelation, and of the righteous judgment of God;

What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God.

Don’t be deceived. God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.

For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption. But he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

Remind them of these things, charging them in the sight of the Lord, that they don’t argue about words, to no profit, to the subverting of those who hear.

the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

Don’t turn away to go after vain things which can’t profit or deliver, for they are vain.

There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm.

a man to whom God gives riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing for his soul of all that he desires, yet God gives him no power to eat of it, but an alien eats it. This is vanity, and it is an evil disease.

Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him.

We have been with child. We have been in pain. We gave birth, it seems, only to wind. We have not worked any deliverance in the earth; neither have the inhabitants of the world fallen.

The priests didn’t say, ‘Where is Yahweh?’ and those who handle the law didn’t know me. The rulers also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and followed things that do not profit.

For they sow the wind, and they will reap the whirlwind. He has no standing grain. The stalk will yield no head. If it does yield, strangers will swallow it up.

For what does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?

Don’t work for the food which perishes, but for the food which remains to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For God the Father has sealed him.”