Guard your step when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not recognize that they are doing evil.
Do not be rash with your mouth, and do not let your heart be hasty to utter a word in God’s presence. For God is in heaven and you are on earth, therefore let your words be few.
For as a dream comes when there are a multitude of cares, so the voice of a fool comes with a multitude of words.
When you vow a vow to God, do not delay in paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools; what you vow, pay!
It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay.
Do not let your mouth cause your whole body to sin. Do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?
For in many dreams and in many words there is much that is pointless. Rather, fear God!
The Vanity of Wealth and Honor
If you see the oppression of the poor and the denial of justice and righteousness in the land, do not be amazed at the situation; for one authority watches over another authority, and there are higher authorities over them.
But in all, an advantage for a land is this: a king, for the sake of agriculture.
The one who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor will the one who loves abundance be satisfied with his income. This too is pointless.
When goods increase, those who consume them increase, and what advantage is there to the owner, except to look at them with his eyes?
The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the wealthy person will not allow him to sleep.
There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: wealth kept by its owner to his harm.
Then that wealth is lost through bad business dealings, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing to pass on.
As he came out from his mother’s womb, naked will he go again as he came, and he will take nothing for his labor that he can carry away in his hand.
This also is a grievous evil, that in the same way that he came, so will he go. And what profit does he have who labors for the wind?
Also, all his days he eats in darkness, with much frustration and sickness and anger.
Here is what I have seen to be good: it is appropriate for one to eat and to drink and to see good in all his labor in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life that God has given him for this is his portion.
Every man also to whom God has given wealth and riches, and has given him power to enjoy them and to accept his portion and to take pleasure in his labor—this is the gift of God.
For he does not brood much over the days of his life, because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.