When you vow a vow to God, don’t defer to pay it; for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay that which you vow. | When you make a vow to God, do not delay in fulfilling it, for God has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill the vow you have made. |
He who loves silver shall not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. | One who is covetous will never be satisfied with money, nor will the lover of wealth be content with gain. This too is vanity. |
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When goods increase, those who eat them are increased; and what advantage is there to its owner, except to feast on them with his eyes? | When riches increase, so do those who are eager to accumulate them, and those who have accumulated them must remain content simply to feast their eyes on them. |
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. | Just as he came forth naked from his mother’s womb, so shall he depart, naked as he came, with nothing remaining from his labor that he can carry away in his hands. |
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. | This is the conclusion I have reached: it is fitting for a man to eat and drink and find satisfaction in the results of his labors under the sun during the brief span of life that God has allotted him. |
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. | Moreover, the one to whom God grants wealth and possessions and the ability to enjoy them and to find contentment in his toil receives a gift from God. |