Ecclesiastes 8 - Julia E. Smith Translation 1876

¹ Who as the wise one? and who will know the interpretation of the word? The wisdom of man shall enlighten his face, and the hard of face shall be hated.

² I am to watch the king's mouth by reason of the oath of God.

³ Thou shalt not hasten going from his face: thou shalt not stand by the word of evil; for he shall do all that he will desire.

⁴ Wheresoever the word of a king, it is powerful: and who shall say to him, What wilt thou do?

⁵ He watching the command knew no evil word: and time and judgment the wise one will know.

⁶ To every inclination there is time and judgment; for man's evil is great upon him.

⁷ For he will not know what shall be: for as it shall be who shall announce to him?

⁸ No man having power in spirit to restrain the spirit: and no power in the day of death: and no sending forth in war; and injustice shall not deliver its possessors.

⁹ All this I saw, and giving my heart to every work which was done under the sun: a time which man had power overman for evil to him.

¹⁰ And so then I saw the unjust buried, and they came and they will go from the holy place, and they will be forgotten in the city where they did thus: also this is vanity.

¹¹ Because a decree was not done quickly upon an evil work, for this the heart of the sons of man was filled in them to do evil.

¹² Whoever sinned, doing evil a hundred, and it being prolonged to him, for also I know that it will be to those fearing God, who shall be afraid from his face.

¹³ And it shall not be good to the unjust one; he shall not lengthen the days as a shadow, for he feared not from before the face of God.

¹⁴ There is vanity which was done upon the earth; that there is the just which it comes upon them according to the work of the unjust: and there is the unjust, it comes upon them according to the work of the just. I said, Also this is vanity.

¹⁵ And I praised joy, because there is no good to man under the sun but to eat and to drink, and to rejoice: for this shall lodge with him in his labor the days of his life which God gave to him under the sun.

¹⁶ According as I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to see the labor that was done upon the earth: for also in the day and in the night he saw not sleep with his eyes.

¹⁷ And I saw all the work of God, that no man shall be able to find out the work that was done under the sun in whatsoever a man shall labor to seek out, and he shall not find: and also if the wise one shall say to know, he shall not be able to find.