10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol (the place of the dead), where you are going.
11. I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. [Ps. 33:16-19; Rom. 9:16.]
12. For man also knows not his time [of death]: as the fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the birds are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when [calamity] falls suddenly upon them.
13. This [illustration of] wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great to me:
14. There was a little city with few men in it. And a great king came against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it.
15. But there was found in it a poor wise man, and he by his wisdom delivered the city. Yet no man [seriously] remembered that poor man.
16. But I say that wisdom is better than might, though the poor man's wisdom is despised and his words are not heeded.
17. The words of wise men heard in quiet are better than the shouts of him who rules among fools.
18. Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.