UST ECC Chapter 5

◄ ECC 5 ► ║ ═ ©

5 Be mindful of how you behave when you go to worship God at his house. Draw near to him to worship him by listening expectantly. That is far better than offering sacrifices to God in the ways that foolish people do. They are ignorant even of the fact that they are behaving inappropriately in God’s presence! 2 Do not be so quick to say something to God that you speak rashly without thinking about the words you say. Neither should you allow yourself to raise an issue hastily in God’s presence. You ought to remember that this God is the true, uncreated God who rules from heaven, and that you, a mere creature, live here on the dust of the earth. For this reason, you ought to think carefully before you say anything in God’s presence. 3 After all, it is like people say:

“When someone claims to receive secret messages from the gods,

he tends to rush busily about their lives.

And whenever foolish people talk,

they tend to speak in as many words as possible.”

4 For example, if you solemnly promise God that you will offer a sacrifice to him to thank him for something he has or will do for you, you ought to do what you promised quickly. Neither God nor his people suffer foolish people. You should be careful to do whatever you promise God that you will do. 5 It is better to not promise anything to God than to promise to do something and then fail to do it! 6 You should never talk in such a way that, by failing to do what you promise, you begin to sin. It would be shameful if you publicly promised God that you would offer him a sacrifice, only to lie and attempt to justify yourself when God’s priest arrived to collect the sacrificial animal from you. You might foolishly claim that you made a mistake in promising to sacrifice to God. If you were to do that, God would be so frustrated with your so-called promises that he would destroy everything you have worked to accomplish! 7 This is the point: While everyone else is chasing elusive, secret messages from the gods, offering the prolific, manipulative prayers of foolish people, or doing whatever vapid things people do in God’s presence, you ought to live your life fearfully remembering that God is God, and you are not!

8 You may witness powerful people where you live extorting money from impoverished people or corrupting legal systems that are intended to promote just and fair outcomes to their own benefit. You should not be overly surprised about this. Lamentably, this is the way things are. The people who can hold these powerful people accountable merely watch and do nothing. And even these more powerful people are under the authority of someone even higher, who likewise sits around and does nothing to address the injustices. 9 Also, all of these corrupt officials seize the harvests of our fields—even the king enjoys the food that his subjects collect from our farms.

10 Some people believe that only wealth can provide them

with the kind of happy life that they desire.

These people will never think that they have enough money,

nor will any number of possessions that they acquire make them truly happy.

In reality, money is also as fleeting and insubstantial

as the fading mist of my breath.

11 The more wealth that an individual has,

the more people seek to benefit from that individual’s wealth.

So, rich people do not really benefit from their wealth.

It only seems to others that their wealth helps them.

12 Despite popular assumptions, poor, hardworking people often sleep soundly at night,

no matter whether they have a lot of food or only a little to eat.

Ironically, like a person who sleeps poorly because he has eaten too much,

the wealth that rich people believe provides them with a satisfying and happy life

actually makes them so anxious that they are unable to fall asleep.

13 I have observed that money is the cause of another lamentable, gut-wrenching situation that can happen to people during their lives. I have watched someone diligently save all of his substantial income. But, rather than protecting him, his wealth ultimately caused him financial and emotional pain. 14 When his investments unexpectedly failed, he lost his entire savings. He had planned to give this wealth to his son as an inheritance. Yet now, he had nothing left to pass on. 15 And so, that man died in the same condition as when his mother gave birth to him: He began his life naked, possessing no wealth, and so he died in the same way. When he died, that man’s never-ending labor had never produced for him any meaningful sense of satisfaction or joy.

16 Yes, this was the lamentable, gut-wrenching situation that I witnessed: This man brought nothing into the world when his life began, and, when he died, he took nothing with him. And so, it seems that his hard work never enabled him to feel truly satisfied with his life. His difficult, stressful work was like a frustrated attempt to grab a handful of the wind. 17 Moreover, every day of his life, he sat in the dark when he ate his meals—deeply depressed, fatigued from illness, and fuming.

18 Now, pay attention! I have observed how beautiful life can be when people merely enjoy the food and drink that they have and allow themselves to feel some satisfying happiness in their hard work. People can do this only while they are alive, during the brief span of life that God has allotted to them as his gift—no more and no less. 19 God sometimes gives people money and possessions. But only sometimes does he also give them the ability to enjoy what they have. When God does, people accept what God has given them—no more and no less—and are able to enjoy their otherwise difficult and stressful work. This joyful acceptance is something priceless, like a gift from God. 20 By enabling us to accept the good things in our lives joyfully, God focuses our attention on what we enjoy about our lives. This allows us to forget momentarily the reality that, one day, we will inevitably die.

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