11 Throw your bread out onto the waters

because you’ll find it again in several days.

2 Share it around seven or eight others

because you don’t know when a calamity will hit your area.

3 If the clouds are filled with rain, they’ll pour it out,

and if a tree falls to the north or the south,

wherever it falls, that’s where it’ll be.

4 A person who worries about the wind,

won’t sow any seed,

≈ and someone who keeps looking at the clouds,

will never harvest their crop.

5 Just as you don’t know how the winds work,

or how the bones get into a pregnant woman’s womb,

nor do you know how God does everything that he does.

6 Sow your seed in the morning

and don’t stop planting until the evening,

because you don’t know which areas will grow well,

or whether it will all succeed equally.

7 Light is sweet

and it’s good for your eyes to see the sun.

8 Even if a person lives for many years,

they should take pleasure in all of them,

but remember the dark days

because everything that happens is pointless.