Ecclesiastes / Enjoy Youth and Remember Your Creator: The Approach of Old Age

Enjoy Youth and Remember Your Creator: The Approach of Old Age

Ecclesiastes 11:7-12:8

Chapter 11

⁷ And sweet is the light, and good it is for the eyes to see the sun. ⁸ For if the man lives many years, in all of them he will rejoice and remember the days of the darkness, for many they will be. All that comes is hebel. ⁹ Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart make good for you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart and in the visions of your eyes. And know that for all these God will bring you into judgment. ¹⁰ And remove anger from your heart and put away evil from your flesh, for childhood and blackness are vanity.

Chapter 12

¹ And remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of evil come and the years arrive in which you say, "I have no delight in them." ² until the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain. ³ In the day the keepers of the house quake and the men of the Might stagger and the grinders cease because they have become few, and the seeings grow dark in the locusts. ⁴ and the doors will be shut in the market, at the low sound of the mill, and he will rise at the voice of the bird, and the daughters of song will be brought low. ⁵ Also, they will fear high places, and terrors will be in the way; the almond tree will blossom, the grasshopper will drag itself along, and the caperberry will burst; for man is going to his eternal home, and mourners will go about the streets. ⁶ until the silver cord is loosened, the golden bowl is broken, the jar is shattered at the spring, and the wheel is crushed at the pit. ⁷ And the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. ⁸ "Vanity of vanities," said Qoheleth; "all is vanity."