Chapter five.
Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear than to
give the sacrifice of fools.
For they consider not that they do evil.
Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything
before God.
For God is in heaven, and thou upon earth.
Therefore let thy words be few, for a dream cometh through the multitude
of business, and a fool's voice is known by multitude of words.
When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it, for he hath no
pleasure in fools.
Pay that which thou hast vowed.
Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.
Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin, neither say thou before the angel
that it was an error.
Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine
hands?
For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities,
but fear thou God.
If thou seest the oppression of the poor and violent perverting of judgment and
justice in a province, marvel not at the matter.
For he that is higher than the highest regardeth, and there be higher than they.
Moreover the profit of the earth is for all, the king himself is served by the
field.
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he that loveth
abundance with increase, this is also vanity.
When goods increase they are increased that eat them, and what good is there to
the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?
The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much,
but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely riches kept for the
owners thereof to their hurt.
But those riches perish by evil travail, and he begetteth a son, and there is
nothing in his hand.
As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came,
and shall take nothing of his labor, which he may carry away in his hand.
And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go.
And what profit hath he that hath labored for the wind?
All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his
sickness.
Behold that which I have seen, it is good and comely for one to eat and
to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor, that he taketh under the sun all
the days of his life, which God giveth him.
For it is his portion, every man also to whom God hath given riches and wealth,
and hath given him power to eat thereof, and to take his portion.
And to rejoice in his labor, this is the gift of God.
For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God answereth him in the
joy of his heart.