Ecclesiastes 6:3

New American Bible - revised edition

Should one have a hundred children and live many years, no matter to what great age, still if one has not the full benefit of those goods, I proclaim that the child born dead, even if left unburied, is more fortunate.

Cross References

Genesis 33:5

Then Esau looked up and saw the women and children and asked, “Who are these with you?” Jacob answered, “They are the children with whom God has graciously favored your servant.”

Genesis 47:9

Jacob replied: “The years I have lived as a wayfarer amount to a hundred and thirty. Few and hard have been these years of my life, and they do not compare with the years that my ancestors lived as wayfarers.”

2 Kings 10:1

Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. Jehu wrote letters and sent them to Samaria, to the elders who were rulers of Jezreel and to Ahab’s guardians. Jehu wrote:

2 Kings 9:35

But when they went to bury her, they found nothing of her but the skull, the feet, and the hands.

1 Chronicles 28:5

And of all my sons—for the Lord has given me many sons—he has chosen my son Solomon to sit on the throne of the Lord’s kingship over Israel.

2 Chronicles 11:21

Rehoboam loved Maacah, daughter of Absalom, more than all his other wives and concubines; he had taken eighteen wives and sixty concubines, and he fathered twenty-eight sons and sixty daughters.

Job 3:11

Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire?

Job 3:16

Or why was I not buried away like a stillborn child, like babies that have never seen the light?

Psalm 58:8

Make them vanish like water flowing away; trodden down, let them wither like grass.

Proverbs 17:6

Children’s children are the crown of the elderly, and the glory of children is their parentage.

Ecclesiastes 4:3

And better off than both is the yet unborn, who has not seen the wicked work that is done under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 6:4

Though it came in vain and goes into darkness and its name is enveloped in darkness,

Jeremiah 22:19

The burial of a donkey he shall be given, dragged forth and cast out beyond the gates of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah 36:30

The Lord now says of Jehoiakim, king of Judah: No descendant of his shall sit on David’s throne; his corpse shall be thrown out, exposed to heat by day, frost by night.

Jeremiah 8:2

and spread out before the sun, the moon, and the whole host of heaven, which they loved and served, which they followed, consulted, and worshiped. They will not be gathered up for burial, but will lie like dung upon the ground.

Matthew 26:24

The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed. It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”