Ecclesiastes 5:10-20 NAS
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves
abundance with its income. This too is vanity. When
good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is
the advantage to their owners except to look on? The sleep of the
working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the full
stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.
There
is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being
hoarded by their owner to his hurt. When those riches were lost
through a bad investment and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing
to support him. As he had come naked from his mother's womb, so will
he return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his
labor that he can carry in his hand. This also is a grievous
evil--exactly as a man is born, thus will he die. So what is
the advantage to him who toils for the wind? Throughout his life he
also eats darkness with great vexation, sickness and anger. Here
is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy
oneself in all one's labor in which he toils under the sun during
the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his
reward. Further more, as for every man to whom God has given riches
and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his
reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God. For he
will not often consider the years of his life, because God keeps him
occupied with the gladness of his heart.
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