Then he said to them, “Go, eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to those for whom none is prepared. For this day is set-apart to our יהוה. Do not be sad, for the joy of יהוה is your strength.”
And all that my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labour. And this was my portion from all my labour.
I searched in my heart how to stimulate my body with wine, while guiding my heart with wisdom, and how to lay hold on folly, until I could see what was good for the sons of men to do under the heavens all the days of their lives.
For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his futile life, which he passes like a shadow? For who declares to man what shall be after him, under the sun?
A man to whom Elohim has given riches and wealth and esteem, so that his being lacks none at all of what he desires, but Elohim does not permit him to eat of it, and a foreigner consumes it. This is futile, and it is an evil disease.
Therefore I praised enjoyment, because there is no good to man except to eat, and to drink, and to rejoice – and it remains with him in his labour for the days of his life which Elohim has given him under the sun.
“If you do not hear, and if you do not take it to heart, to give esteem to My Name,” said יהוה of hosts, “I shall send a curse upon you, and I shall curse your blessings. And indeed, I have cursed them, because you do not take it to heart.
though, indeed, He did not leave Himself without witness, doing good – giving us rain from heaven and fruit-bearing seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”
If, as men do, I have fought with beasts at Ephesos, of what good is it to me? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”
“But eat them before יהוה your Elohim, in the place which יהוה your Elohim chooses, you and your son and your daughter, and your male servant and your female servant, and the Lĕ
Charge those who are rich in this present age not to be high-minded, nor to trust in the uncertainty of riches, but in the living Elohim, who gives us richly all for enjoyment,