7. Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.
8. Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking on your head.
9. Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.
10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are going.
11. I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all.
12. Moreover, man does not know his time: like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare, so the sons of men are ensnared at an evil time when it suddenly falls on them.
13. Also this I came to see as wisdom under the sun, and it impressed me.
14. There was a small city with few men in it and a great king came to it, surrounded it and constructed large siegeworks against it.
15. But there was found in it a poor wise man and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man.
16. So I said, "Wisdom is better than strength." But the wisdom of the poor man is despised and his words are not heeded.
17. The words of the wise heard in quietness are better than the shouting of a ruler among fools.