5

There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt.

The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.

When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes?

He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.

Moreover the profit of the earth is for all: the king himself is served by the field.

If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.

For in the multitude of dreams and many words there are also divers vanities: but fear thou God.

Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?

Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay.

When thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for he hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed.

For a dream cometh through the multitude of business; and a fool"s voice is known by multitude of words.

Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few.

Keep thy foot when thou goest to the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools: for they consider not that they do evil.

He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.

His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sins.

For the ways of man are before the eyes of the LORD, and he pondereth all his goings.

And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?

Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.

Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.

Let them be only thine own, and not strangers" with thee.

Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.

Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

I was almost in all evil in the midst of the congregation and assembly.

And have not obeyed the voice of my teachers, nor inclined mine ear to them that instructed me!

And say, How have I hated instruction, and my heart despised reproof;

And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed,

Lest strangers be filled with thy wealth; and thy labours be in the house of a stranger;

Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:

Remove thy way far from her, and come not nigh the door of her house:

Hear me now therefore, O ye children, and depart not from the words of my mouth.