Driven on by my desire for wisdom, I decided to cheer myself up with wine and have a good time. I thought that this might be the best way people can spend their short lives on earth.

After all this, there is only one thing to say: Have reverence for God, and obey his commands, because this is all that we were created for.

There are many who pray: "Give us more blessings, O LORD. Look on us with kindness!"

You, LORD, are all I have, and you give me all I need; my future is in your hands.

But I will see you, because I have done no wrong; and when I awake, your presence will fill me with joy.

He chose for us the land where we live, the proud possession of his people, whom he loves.

The LORD is all I have, and so in him I put my hope.

So it is best for us to wait in patience---to wait for him to save us---

No, the LORD has told us what is good. What he requires of us is this: to do what is just, to show constant love, and to live in humble fellowship with our God.

but it will not go well for the wicked. Their life is like a shadow and they will die young, because they do not obey God."

Their loves, their hates, their passions, all died with them. They will never again take part in anything that happens in this world.

You know, O LORD, that we pass through life like exiles and strangers, as our ancestors did. Our days are like a passing shadow, and we cannot escape death.

Our life is short, we know nothing at all; we pass like shadows across the earth.

We grow and wither as quickly as flowers; we disappear like shadows.

How short you have made my life! In your sight my lifetime seems nothing. Indeed every living being is no more than a puff of wind,

no more than a shadow. All we do is for nothing; we gather wealth, but don't know who will get it.

Remember how short my life is; remember that you created all of us mortal!

Seventy years is all we have--- eighty years, if we are strong; yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow; life is soon over, and we are gone.

Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise.

My life is like the evening shadows; I am like dry grass.

Like an evening shadow I am about to vanish; I am blown away like an insect.

We are like a puff of wind; our days are like a passing shadow.

You don't even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.

So I realized then that the best thing we can do is enjoy what we have worked for. There is nothing else we can do. There is no way for us to know what will happen after we die.

None of us knows what is going to happen, and there is no one to tell us.

Our children win honor, but we never know it, nor are we told when they are disgraced.