3:1 There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens.
3:2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
3:3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build.
3:4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
3:5 A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
3:6 A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.
3:7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak.
3:8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
3:9 What advantage has the worker from his toil?
3:10 I have considered the task which God has appointed for men to be busied about.
3:11 He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts, without men’s ever discovering, from beginning to end, the work which God has done.
3:12 I recognized that there is nothing better than to be glad and to do well during life.
3:13 For every man, moreover, to eat and drink and enjoy the fruit of all his labor is a gift of God.
3:14 I recognized that whatever God does will endure forever; there is no adding to it, or taking from it. Thus has God done that he may be revered.
3:15 What now is has already been; what is to be, already is; and God restores what would otherwise be displaced.
3:16 And still under the sun in the judgment place I saw wickedness, and in the seat of justice, iniquity.
3:17 And I said to myself, both the just and the wicked God will judge, since there is a time for every affair and on every work a judgment.
3:18 I said to myself: As for the children of men, it is God’s way of testing them and of showing that they are in themselves like beasts.
3:19 For the lot of man and of beast is one lot; the one dies as well as the other. Both have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast; but all is vanity.
3:20 Both go to the same place; both were made from the dust, and to the dust they both return.
3:21 Who knows if the life-breath of the children of men goes upward and the life-breath of beasts goes earthward?
3:22 And I saw that there is nothing better for a man than to rejoice in his work; for this is his lot. Who will let him see what is to come after him?