New American Bible, Revised Edition

Ecclesiastes 9:4-14 New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE)

4. For whoever is chosen among all the living has hope: “A live dog is better off than a dead lion.”

5. For the living know that they are to die, but the dead no longer know anything. There is no further recompense for them, because all memory of them is lost.

6. For them, love and hatred and rivalry have long since perished. Never again will they have part in anything that is done under the sun.

7. Go, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart, because it is now that God favors your works.

8. At all times let your garments be white, and spare not the perfume for your head.

9. Enjoy life with the wife you love, all the days of the vain life granted you under the sun. This is your lot in life, for the toil of your labors under the sun.

10. Anything you can turn your hand to, do with what power you have; for there will be no work, no planning, no knowledge, no wisdom in Sheol where you are going.

11. Again I saw under the sun that the race is not won by the swift, nor the battle by the valiant, nor a livelihood by the wise, nor riches by the shrewd, nor favor by the experts; for a time of misfortune comes to all alike.

12. Human beings no more know their own time than fish taken in the fatal net or birds trapped in the snare; like these, mortals are caught when an evil time suddenly falls upon them.

13. On the other hand I saw this wise deed under the sun, which I thought magnificent.

14. Against a small city with few inhabitants advanced a mighty king, who surrounded it and threw up great siegeworks about it.