| One who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor one who loves abundance with its income. This too is futility. | Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. |
| I have seen that every labor and every skill which is done is the result of rivalry between a person and his neighbor. This too is futility and striving after wind. | And I saw that all toil and all achievement spring from one person’s envy of another. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. |
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| So remove sorrow from your heart and keep pain away from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting. | So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless. |
| Wealth obtained from nothing dwindles, But one who gathers by labor increases it. | Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow. |
| Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves. | Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves. |
| Keep deception and lies far from me, Give me neither poverty nor riches; Feed me with the food that is my portion. | Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. |
| For the customs of the peoples are futile; For it is wood cut from the forest, The work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. They decorate the idol with silver and gold; They fasten it with nails and hammers So that it will not totter. They are like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, And they cannot speak; They must be carried, Because they cannot walk! Do not fear them, For they can do no harm, Nor can they do any good. | For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good. |
