Literary Imagination Advance Access originally published online on June 3, 2008
Literary Imagination 2008 10(3):265-266; doi:10.1093/litimag/imn027
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Ecclesiastes 9:1–12 A New Translation
For all this I took to heart:
how the righteous and the wise
and their labours are in the hand of God
to love or to hate.
A man has no knowledge of this.
All that is before him is emptiness.
One fate comes to all,
to the righteous and the wicked,
to the good and to the evil,
to the clean and to the unclean,
to those who sacrifice and those who do not.
As is the good man, so is the sinner;
The one who swears is like the one who fears to swear.
This is an evil among all that is done under the sun,
that one fate comes to all.
And also the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil,
and madness is in their hearts while they live,
and, after that, to the dead.
For he who is joined to all the living has hope;
for better to be a living dog than a dead lion.
For the living know that they shall die,
but the dead know not anything.
And they have no reward anymore,
for their memory is forgotten.
Also their love, also their hate, also their envy, has perished,
and they have no share anymore forever
in all that is done under the sun.
Go, eat your bread with joy,
and drink your wine with good heart,
for God has long desired your deeds.
Let your garments always be white,
and do not let your head be without oil.
Live joyfully with the wife you love
all the days of your life of emptiness
which he has given to you under the sun
–all the days of your life of emptiness–
for that is your share in life
and in the toil that you toil at under the sun.
All that your hand finds to do
do it with all your might,
for there is no work, nor thought,
nor knowledge, nor wisdom
in Sheol, where you are surely going.
I turned and I saw that under the sun
the race does not go to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong,
neither does bread go to the wise,
nor riches to men of understanding,
and neither does favour go to men of knowledge,
for time and chance happen to them all.
For also no man knows his time;
like fish caught in an evil net,
or birds caught in a snare,
like them the sons of men are caught in an evil time
when it falls on them suddenly.
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