Douay Rheims Original ↷
Ecclesiastes 5 📜 📕 ↷
Approaching God with Awe
1 SPEAK not any thing rashly, neither let thy heart be swift to utter a word before God. For God is in heaven, and thou upon the earth: therefore let thy words be few.📜💬📚
2 Dreams do follow many cares, and in many words folly will be found.📜💬📚
3 If thou hast vowed any thing to God, defer not to pay it: for an unfaithful and foolish promise displeaseth him. But whatsoever thou hast vowed, pay it:📜💬📚
4 and it is much better not to vow, than after a vow not to perform the things promised.📜💬📚
5 Give not thy mouth to make thy flesh to sin: neither say thou before the angel: There is no providence; lest perhaps God being wrath against thy words, dissipate all the works of thy hands.📜💬📚
6 Where many dreams are, there are many vanities, and words innumerable: but do thou fear God.📜💬📚
7 If thou shalt see the oppressions of the poor, and violent judgements, and justice to be subverted in the province, marvel not at this matter: because there is an other higher than the high, and over these also there are others more eminent:📜💬📚
Futility of Wealth
8 and besides, the King of all the earth reigneth over his servant.📜💬📚
9 A covetous man shall not be filled with money: and he that loveth riches, shall take no fruit of them: and this therefore is vanity.📜💬📚
10 Where great riches are, there are also many that eat them. And what doth it profit the owner, but that he seeth the riches with his eyes?📜💬📚
11 Sleep is sweet to him that worketh, whether he eat much or little: but the satiety of the rich doth not suffer him to sleep.📜💬📚
12 There is also an other very ill infirmity, which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the hurt of the owner.📜💬📚
13 For they perish in very evil affliction: he hath begotten a son, which shall be in great poverty.📜💬📚
14 As he came forth naked from his mother's womb, so shall he return, and shall take nothing away with him of his labour.📜💬📚
15 An infirmity utterly miserable; as he came, so shall he return. What doth it then profit him, that he hath laboured into the wind?📜💬📚
16 All the days of his life he eateth in darkness, and in misery, and in heaviness.📜💬📚
17 This therefore hath seemed good to me, that a man eat, and drink, and take joy of his labour, wherewith he hath laboured under the sun, the number of the days of his life, which God hath given him, and this is his portion.📜💬📚
18 And to every man, unto whom God hath given riches, and substance, and hath given him power to eat of them, and to enjoy his portion, and to rejoice of his labour: this is the gift of God.📜💬📚
19 For he shall not greatly remember the days of his life, because God doth occupy his heart with delights.📜💬📚
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