9 Young people, enjoy being young and strong

and stay cheerful during that youthful stage.

Follow your ambitions and your desires

but be aware that God will judge you concerning all those things.

10 Don’t allow yourself to be controlled by anger

and keep your body away from evil,

because youth and good looks are a vapour that passes.

12 Think about your creator while you’re still young,

before troubling times come

and the years arrive when you’ll say that you no longer find pleasure in them.

2 Yes, before the sun and the light, and the moon and the stars seem darker,

and the clouds return after the rain.

3 That day when the guards of the house will get the trembles

and the strong men will be bent over,

and the women grinding grain will stop because there’s only a few of them left,

and the women looking out the windows will no longer see clearly.[fn]

4 Then the doors in the street will be shut

so that the grinding that gets louder with the first birdsong will be barely heard

and all the girls singing will be quietened.

5 The people will also become afraid of heights

and the road will have its terrors.

The almond trees will blossom

and the locusts will drag themselves along.

Normal desires will be lost

because you’ll be heading for your eternal home

and the mourners will be in the streets.

6 Think about God before the silver cord gets broken

≈and the golden bowl breaks,

the pitcher shatters at the well

≈and the wheel is crushed at the cistern,

7 the dust returns to the earth as it was

and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

8 “Nothing but a puff of air,” says the leader. “Everything is pointless.”