1734 verses about Life

Therefore I praised the dead who have been long dead more than the living who are yet alive.

I saw all the living who walk under the sun, that they were with the youth, the other, who succeeded him.

Moreover the profit of the earth is for all. The king profits from the field.

Those riches perish by misfortune, and if he has fathered a son, there is nothing in his hand.

As he came out of his mother’s womb, naked shall he go again as he came, and shall take nothing for his labor, which he may carry away in his hand.

Behold, that which I have seen to be good and proper is for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor, in which he labors under the sun, all the days of his life which God has given him; for this is his portion.

Every man also to whom God has given riches and wealth, and has given him power to eat of it, and to take his portion, and to rejoice in his labor—this is the gift of God.

For he shall not often reflect on the days of his life; because God occupies him with the joy of his heart.

If a man fathers a hundred children, and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but his soul is not filled with good, and moreover he has no burial; I say, that a stillborn child is better than he:

Yes, though he live a thousand years twice told, and yet fails to enjoy good, don’t all go to one place?

For what advantage has the wise more than the fool? What has the poor man, that knows how to walk before the living?

For who knows what is good for man in life, all the days of his vain life which he spends like a shadow? For who can tell a man what will be after him under the sun?

A good name is better than fine perfume; and the day of death better than the day of one’s birth.

It is better to go to the house of mourning than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men, and the living should take this to heart.

The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.

Wisdom is as good as an inheritance. Yes, it is more excellent for those who see the sun.

For wisdom is a defense, even as money is a defense; but the excellency of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of him who has it.

All this I have seen in my days of vanity: there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who lives long in his evildoing.

Don’t be too wicked, neither be foolish. Why should you die before your time?

There is no man who has power over the spirit to contain the spirit; neither does he have power over the day of death. There is no discharge in war; neither shall wickedness deliver those who practice it.

So I saw the wicked buried. Indeed they came also from holiness. They went and were forgotten in the city where they did this. This also is vanity.

Though a sinner commits crimes a hundred times, and lives long, yet surely I know that it will be better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him.

But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow; because he doesn’t fear God.

There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.

Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be joyful: for that will accompany him in his labor all the days of his life which God has given him under the sun.

For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before them.

All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and to him who doesn’t sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath.

This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event to all: yes also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.

For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.

For the living know that they will die, but the dead don’t know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for their memory is forgotten.

Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long ago; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.

Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.

Let your garments be always white, and don’t let your head lack oil.

Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor plan, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.

For man also doesn’t know his time. As the fish that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, even so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly on them.

A feast is made for laughter, and wine makes the life glad; and money is the answer for all things.

As you don’t know what is the way of the wind, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child; even so you don’t know the work of God who does all.

Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to see the sun.

Yes, if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. All that comes is vanity.

Rejoice, young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth, and walk in the ways of your heart, and in the sight of your eyes; but know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.

Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”;

before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the spring, or the wheel broken at the cistern,

and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All is vanity!”

This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.

For, behold, the winter is past. The rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth. The time of the singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon. Beloved

It will happen, that he who is left in Zion, and he who remains in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even everyone who is written among the living in Jerusalem;

“Go, and tell Hezekiah, ‘Yahweh, the God of David your father, says, “I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will add fifteen years to your life.

I said, “In the middle of my life I go into the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the residue of my years.”

I said, “I won’t see Yah, Yah in the land of the living. I will see man no more with the inhabitants of the world.

My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up, like a weaver, my life. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me.

What will I say? He has both spoken to me, and himself has done it. I will walk carefully all my years because of the anguish of my soul.

Lord, men live by these things; and my spirit finds life in all of them: you restore me, and cause me to live.

The living, the living, he shall praise you, as I do today. The father shall make known your truth to the children.

Yahweh will save me. Therefore we will sing my songs with stringed instruments all the days of our life in Yahweh’s house.

The voice of one saying, “Cry!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field.

The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.

Who has worked and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I, Yahweh, the first, and with the last, I am he.”

Thus says God Yahweh, he who created the heavens and stretched them out, he who spread out the earth and that which comes out of it, he who gives breath to its people and spirit to those who walk in it.

and they will spring up among the grass, as willows by the watercourses.

He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak, and strengthens for himself one among the trees of the forest. He plants a cypress tree, and the rain nourishes it.

I have made the earth, and created man on it. I, even my hands, have stretched out the heavens; and I have commanded all their army.

“Hey! Come, everyone who thirsts, to the waters! Come, he who has no money, buy, and eat! Yes, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.

Turn your ear, and come to me. Hear, and your soul will live: and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

and Yahweh will guide you continually, and satisfy your soul in dry places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters don’t fail.

“No more will there be an infant who only lives a few days, nor an old man who has not filled his days; for the child will die one hundred years old, and the sinner being one hundred years old will be accursed.

They will build houses, and inhabit them. They will plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.

They will not build, and another inhabit. They will not plant, and another eat: for the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, and my chosen will long enjoy the work of their hands.

Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to be delivered?” says Yahweh. “Shall I who cause to give birth shut the womb?” says your God.

“For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before me,” says Yahweh, “so your offspring and your name shall remain.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Death will be chosen rather than life by all the residue that remain of this evil family, that remain in all the places where I have driven them,” says Yahweh of Armies.

But Yahweh is the true God. He is the living God, and an everlasting King. At his wrath, the earth trembles. The nations aren’t able to withstand his indignation.

Yahweh, I know that the way of man is not in himself. It is not in man who walks to direct his steps.

For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green; and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit.

Cursed is the day in which I was born. Don’t let the day in which my mother bore me be blessed.

because he didn’t kill me from the womb. So my mother would have been my grave, and her womb always great.

Why did I come out of the womb to see labor and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?

“You shall say to this people, ‘Yahweh says: “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death.

He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out, and passes over to the Chaldeans who besiege you, he will live, and he will escape with his life.

But the hand of Ahikam the son of Shaphan was with Jeremiah, so that they didn’t give him into the hand of the people to put him to death.

‘I have made the earth, the men, and the animals that are on the surface of the earth by my great power and by my outstretched arm. I give it to whom it seems right to me.

“Build houses and dwell in them. Plant gardens and eat their fruit.

They will come and sing in the height of Zion, and will flow to the goodness of Yahweh, to the grain, to the new wine, to the oil, and to the young of the flock and of the herd. Their soul will be as a watered garden. They will not sorrow any more at all.

Yes, I will rejoice over them to do them good, and I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my whole soul.”

“Yahweh says, ‘He who remains in this city will die by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence; but he who goes out to the Chaldeans will live, and he will escape with his life, and he will live.’

So Zedekiah the king swore secretly to Jeremiah, saying, “As Yahweh lives, who made us this soul, I will not put you to death, neither will I give you into the hand of these men who seek your life.”

But Jeremiah said, “They won’t deliver you. Obey, I beg you, Yahweh’s voice, in that which I speak to you; so it will be well with you, and your soul will live.

For I will surely save you, and you won’t fall by the sword, but you will escape with your life; because you have put your trust in me,” says Yahweh.’”

But ten men were found among those who said to Ishmael, “Don’t kill us; for we have stores hidden in the field, of wheat, and of barley, and of oil, and of honey.” So he stopped, and didn’t kill them among their brothers.

Then Johanan the son of Kareah and all the captains of the forces who were with him took all the remnant of the people whom he had recovered from Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, from Mizpah, after he had killed Gedaliah the son of Ahikam, the men of war, with the women, the children, and the eunuchs, whom he had brought back from Gibeon.

Do you seek great things for yourself? Don’t seek them; for, behold, I will bring evil on all flesh,’ says Yahweh; ‘but I will let you escape with your life wherever you go.’”

and changed his prison garments. Jehoiachin ate bread before him continually all the days of his life.

For his allowance, there was a continual allowance given him by the king of Babylon, every day a portion until the day of his death, all the days of his life.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches! Pour out your heart like water before the face of the Lord. Lift up your hands toward him for the life of your young children, who faint for hunger at the head of every street.