A Time for Everything

¹For everything there is a season, and la time for every matter under heaven:

²a time to be born, and a time to mdie;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;

³a time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

⁴a time to nweep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to odance;

⁵a time to pcast away stones, and a time to qgather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to rrefrain from embracing;

⁶a time to seek, and a time to slose;

a time to keep, and a time to tcast away;

⁷a time to utear, and a time to sew;

a time to vkeep silence, and a time to speak;

⁸a time to love, and a time to whate;

a time for war, and a time for peace.

The God-Given Task

⁹What xgain has the worker from his toil? ¹⁰I have seen ythe business that zGod has given to the children of man to be busy with. ¹¹He has amade everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot bfind out what God has done from the beginning to the end. ¹²I perceived that there is cnothing better for them than to be joyful and to ddo good as long as they live; ¹³also ethat everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is fGod's gift to man.

¹⁴I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; gnothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. ¹⁵That which is, halready has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God iseeks what has been driven away.1

Expand Chapter