Ecclesiastes 3
Everything Has Its Time
Everything on earth has its own time and its own season.
There is a time for birth and death, planting and reaping,
for killing and healing, destroying and building,
for crying and laughing, weeping and dancing,
for throwing stones and gathering stones, embracing and parting.
There is a time for finding and losing, keeping and giving,
for tearing and sewing, listening and speaking.
There is also a time for love and hate, for war and peace.
What do we gain by all of our hard work?
I have seen what difficult things God demands of us.
God makes everything happen at the right time. Yet none of us can ever fully understand all he has done, and he puts questions in our minds about the past and the future.
I know the best thing we can do is to always enjoy life,
because God's gift to us is the happiness we get from our food and drink and from the work we do.
Everything God has done will last forever; nothing he does can ever be changed. God has done all this, so that we will worship him.
Everything that happens has happened before, and all that will be has already been-- God does everything over and over again.
Everywhere on earth I saw violence and injustice instead of fairness and justice.
So I told myself that God has set a time and a place for everything. He will judge everyone, both the wicked and the good.
