6. Their love and their hatred and their envy have already perished; neither have they any more a share in anything that is done under the sun.
7. Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart [if you are righteous, wise, and in the hands of God], for God has already accepted your works.
8. Let your garments be always white [with purity], and let your head not lack [the] oil [of gladness].
9. Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun–all the days of futility. For that is your portion in this life and in your work at which you toil under the sun.
10. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol (the place of the dead), where you are going.
11. I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, neither is bread to the wise nor riches to men of intelligence and understanding nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. [Ps. 33:16-19; Rom. 9:16.]
12. For man also knows not his time [of death]: as the fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the birds are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when [calamity] falls suddenly upon them.
13. This [illustration of] wisdom have I seen also under the sun, and it seemed great to me:
14. There was a little city with few men in it. And a great king came against it and besieged it and built great bulwarks against it.