1 Watch thy feet when thou goest to the house of God and draw near with more willingness to hear than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know how to do what God wants.
2 Do not be rash with thy mouth and do not let thy heart be hasty to utter any thing before God, for God is in heaven and thou upon earth; therefore let thy words be few.
3 For out of much preoccupation comes the dream, and the voice of the fool out of a multitude of words.
4 When thou dost vow a vow unto God, do not defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools; pay that which thou hast vowed.
5 It is better that thou should not vow than that thou should vow and not pay.
6 Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was ignorance. Why should thou cause God to be angry because of thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands?
7 Because dreams abound, and vanities and the words are many, but fear thou God.
8 If thou seest violence unto the poor and the extortion of rights and justice in a province, do not marvel at the matter, for height is looking upon height; and there is one higher than they.
9 And there is higher authority in all of the things of the earth, but he who serves the field is king.
10 He that loves money shall not be satisfied with money; nor he that loves abundance with increase; this is also vanity.
11 When goods increase, those that eat them are increased; and what good is there to the owners thereof, except the beholding of them with their eyes?
12 The sleep of the servant is sweet whether he eats little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.
13 There is another sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt;
14 which are lost by evil pursuits and to the sons which he has begotten; there is nothing left in his hand.
15 As he came forth of his mother’s womb, naked shall he return to go as he came and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.
16 And this also is a sore evil; that in all points as he came, so shall he go; and what profit has he that has laboured for the wind?
17 In addition to this, all the days of his life he shall eat in darkness, with much wrath and pain and sorrow sickness.
18 Behold therefore the good which I have seen: that good is to eat and to drink and to enjoy of the good of all his labour that he takes under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him; for it is his portion.
19 Likewise, unto every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also given him power to eat thereof and to take his portion and to rejoice in his labour; this is the gift of God.
20 To such a one, God will remove the concerns common to others, for God shall answer him with joy from his heart.