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.
15. But in the city lived a man who, though poor, was wise, and he delivered it through his wisdom. Yet no one remembered this poor man.
16. Though I had said, “Wisdom is better than force,” yet the wisdom of the poor man is despised and his words go unheeded.
17. The quiet words of the wise are better heededthan the shout of a ruler of fools.
18. Wisdom is better than weapons of war,but one bungler destroys much good.