| And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him—a threefold cord is not quickly broken. | A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back-to-back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple-braided cord is not easily broken. |
| For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! | If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. |
| For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. | For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. |
| He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity. | Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! |
| Say not, “Why were the former days better than these?” For it is not from wisdom that you ask this. | Don’t long for “the good old days.” This is not wise. |
| Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. | Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. |
| As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. | Just as you cannot understand the path of the wind or the mystery of a tiny baby growing in its mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the activity of God, who does all things. |
| Remove vexation from your heart, and put away pain from your body, for youth and the dawn of life are vanity. | So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless. |
| He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. | Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. |
| In the day of prosperity be joyful, and in the day of adversity consider: God has made the one as well as the other, so that man may not find out anything that will be after him. | Enjoy prosperity while you can, but when hard times strike, realize that both come from God. Remember that nothing is certain in this life. |
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