Ecclesiastes 3 - Easy To Read Version

¹ There is a right time for everything. And everything on earth will happen at the right time.

² There is a time to be born,\par and a time to die.\par There is a time to plant,\par and a time to pull up plants.\par

³ There is a time to kill,\par and a time to heal.\par There is a time to destroy,\par and a time to build.\par

⁴ There is a time to cry,\par and a time to laugh.\par There is a time to be sad,\par and a time to dance from joy.\par

⁵ There is a time to throw weapons down,\par and a time to pick them up. {\cf2\super [15]} \par There is a time to hug someone,\par and a time to stop holding so tightly.\par

⁶ There is a time to look for something,\par and a time to consider it lost.\par There is a time to keep things,\par and a time to throw things away.\par

⁷ There is a time to tear cloth,\par and there is a time to sew it.\par There is a time to be silent,\par and a time to speak.\par

⁸ There is a time to love,\par and a time to hate.\par There is a time for war,\par and a time for peace.\par

⁹ Does a person really gain anything from his hard work? \{No!\}

¹⁰ I saw all the hard work God gave us to do.

¹¹ God gave us the ability to think about his world. {\cf2\super [16]} But we can never completely understand everything God does. And yet, God does everything at just the right time.

¹² I learned that the best thing for people to do is to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live.

¹³ God wants every person to eat, drink, and enjoy his work. These are gifts from God.

¹⁴ I learned that anything God does will continue forever. People can’t add anything to the work of God. And people can’t take anything away from the work of God. God did this so people would respect him.

¹⁵ Things that happened in the past have happened, \{and we can’t change them\}. And things that will happen in the future will happen, \{and we can’t change them\}. But God wants to help people that have been treated badly. {\cf2\super [17]}

¹⁶ I also saw these things in this life. {\cf2\super [18]} I saw that the courts should be filled with goodness and fairness—but there is evil there now.

¹⁷ So I said to myself, “God has planned a time for everything. And God has planned a time to judge everything people do. God will judge the good people and the bad people.”

¹⁸ I thought about the things people do to each other. And I said to myself, “God wants people to see that they are like animals.

¹⁹ Is a man better than an animal? \{No!\} Why? Because everything is useless. The same thing happens to animals and to people—they die. People and animals have the same “breath.” {\cf2\super [19]} Is a dead animal different from a dead person?

²⁰ The bodies of people and animals end the same way. They came from the earth, and in the end they will go back to the earth.

²¹ Who knows what happens to the spirit of a man? Who knows if a man’s spirit goes up to God while an animal’s spirit goes down into the ground?

²² So I saw that the best thing a person can do is to enjoy what he does. That is all he has. \{Also a person should not worry about the future.\} Why? Because no one can help that person see what will happen in the future.