3:10 I have observed the tasks that God has designated to keep men occupied.
3:11 He has made everything suitable for its time, and he has given men a sense of past and future, but they never have the slightest comprehension of what God has wrought from beginning to end.
3:12 I understand that man’s greatest happiness is to be glad and do well throughout his life.
3:13 And when we eat and drink and find satisfaction in all our labors, this is a gift of God.
3:14 I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it or subtracted from it. God has done this so that everyone will be in awe standing in his presence.
3:15 Whatever is now has already been, that which is to come already is, and God will restore whatever might be displaced.
3:16 Moreover, I observed something else under the sun: Where justice should be, there was wickedness, and iniquity was in the place of righteousness.
3:17 But I remained confident in my belief that God will judge both the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter and he will issue a judgment on every work.
3:18 I said to myself that in dealing with men it is God’s purpose to test them in order to show them that they are animals.
3:19 For the fate of men and beasts is identical: as the one dies, so does the other. They all have the same life-breath, and man has no advantage over the beast in this regard. For everything is vanity.
3:20 All go to the same place: all were made from the dust, and to the dust all will return.
3:21 Who knows whether the human spirit goes upward and the spirit of an animal goes downward to the earth?
3:22 And so I came to realize that there is nothing better for man than to enjoy his work, since that is his lot. No one has the power to let him see what will happen after he is gone.
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