For [God] gives wisdom and knowledge and joy to a man who [is] good in His sight; but to the sinner He gives the work of gathering and collecting, that he may give to [him who is] good before God. This also [is] vanity and grasping for the wind.

Because the hungry eat up his harvest, Taking it even from the thorns, And a snare snatches their substance.

He swallows down riches And vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly.

He will not see the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and cream.

For he has oppressed [and] forsaken the poor, He has violently seized a house which he did not build.

Nothing is left for him to eat; Therefore his well-being will not last.

[When] he is about to fill his stomach, [God] will cast on him the fury of His wrath, And will rain [it] on him while he is eating.

It is drawn, and comes out of the body; Yes, the glittering [point comes] out of his gall. Terrors [come] upon him;

The heavens will reveal his iniquity, And the earth will rise up against him.

This [is] the portion from God for a wicked man, The heritage appointed to him by God."

Though he heaps up silver like dust, And piles up clothing like clay --

He may pile [it] up, but the just will wear [it,] And the innocent will divide the silver.

Surely every man walks about like a shadow; Surely they busy themselves in vain; He heaps up [riches,] And does not know who will gather them.

Will you set your eyes on that which is not? For [riches] certainly make themselves wings; They fly away like an eagle [toward] heaven.

"[You] looked for much, but indeed [it came to] little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?" says the LORD of hosts. "Because of My house that [is in] ruins, while every one of you runs to his own house.

'since those [days,] when [one] came to a heap of twenty ephahs, there were [but] ten; when [one] came to the wine vat to draw out fifty baths from the press, there were [but] twenty.

'I struck you with blight and mildew and hail in all the labors of your hands; yet you did not [turn] to Me,' says the LORD.

" Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;

"but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

"The LORD kills and makes alive; He brings down to the grave and brings up.

He raises the poor from the dust [And] lifts the beggar from the ash heap, To set [them] among princes And make them inherit the throne of glory. "For the pillars of the earth [are] the LORD's, And He has set the world upon them.

And he took away the treasures of the house of the LORD and the treasures of the king's house; he took away everything. He also took away all the gold shields which Solomon had made.

Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow.

Let the creditor seize all that he has, And let strangers plunder his labor.