Capítulo 3

1 - There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

2 - a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 - a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build,

4 - a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,

5 - a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

6 - a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away,

7 - a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak,

8 - a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

9 - What do workers gain from their toil?

10 - I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.

11 - He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet Or [also placed ignorance in the human heart, so that] no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

12 - I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

13 - That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil - this is the gift of God.

14 - I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

15 - Whatever is has already been, and what will be has been before; and God will call the past to account. Or [God calls back the past]

16 - And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment - wickedness was there, in the place of justice - wickedness was there.

17 - I said to myself, "God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed."

18 - I also said to myself, "As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.

19 - Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath Or [spirit]; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless.

20 - All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.

21 - Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"

22 - So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?