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Ecclesiastes 8

8 Wise people are truly unparalleled!

They have the unique ability to solve difficult problems.

Being wise can make people visibly happy

and transform the otherwise grim look of their faces.

2 Now, here is my counsel: God supports the king who represents God and rules with his authority. Because of this divine support, you should pay attention to what the king commands you and comply with his directives. 3 Do not let this king, who has the apparent power of God, intimidate you. If the king should ever mandate that you do something that you find immoral or unjust, you should not comply. Leave immediately! After all, the king has the power to do whatever he wants—including commanding someone to kill you! 4 This is because the king possesses absolute authority, such that none of his subjects could disobey him without risking harm to himself. No one would ever dare to question the king's actions or demand an explanation for what he commands.

5 The king will not harm anyone

who pays attention to what the king commands

and complies with his directives.

In light of this, someone who is wise will need to discern

how to respond to the king's authority with circumspect timing

and appropriate etiquette.

6 They will need to know this because,

although human beings endure all sorts of lamentable realities in life,

in every situation in which people find themselves,

there is always a proper way to do something

and an appropriate moment at which to do it.

7 One of the most lamentable of these realities is that the events of the future are inscrutable to human beings.

After all, no human can foresee the future well enough to tell others about it in advance.

8 God has not empowered anyone to control the wind.

God alone possesses that power.

In a similar way, no one can control when they will die,

just like soldiers cannot decide merely to go home whilst they are fighting a battle.

This is true even for those people who disobey God.

Their sinful attempts to control their own lives apart from God's authority over them

cannot give them mastery over the uncontrollable parts of human life.

9 As I contemplated the kinds of things that happen to people during their lives, I witnessed all these lamentable realities actually happening. I saw that sometimes people like the king possess such power over other human beings that they dominate and harm them.
10 Moreover, I observed the public honor that people gave to wicked people at their funerals after they had died. I had daily witnessed these wicked people going in and out of the sacred places where people worship God, and, ironically, rather than suffering punishment, people in the city praised them for their behavior! Yet, even this, and two other realities, are only temporary, as fleeting and insubstantial as the fading mist of my breath.

11 First, people in power sometimes administer justice against evil actions too slowly.

For this reason, many people feel emboldened to plan

and commit evil actions without fear of negative consequences.

12 Second, sometimes sinful people commit a hundred crimes, and yet they live an unjustly long life.

Despite this, I am confident that the lives of people who understand that God is powerful and just and good—those who fearfully submit themselves to God in trusting obedience—will turn out well in the end.

13 I am also confident of the inverse: The lives of people who willingly disobey God in their sin will not go well. Just like shadows in the setting sun only appear to grow and stretch on forever—in the same way, the current prosperity of the lives of evil people is an illusion. After all, they feel no fear when they think of God's power and justice!

14 So, yes. It is only a temporary reality of this life that the undesirable and painful things that bad people deserve sometimes happen to good and faithful people, and the best parts of life, the kind of lives that good people deserve, seem to happen to bad people. I confess that, despite current appearances, these realities are also as temporary as the fleeting mist of my fading breath.
15 In light of all this, living life joyfully is worth celebrating! The best that anyone can do during one's life is simply to eat and drink and be happy. For as long as this God graciously decides a person should live, this kind of simple joy and acceptance will remain with him like a faithful companion, no matter what difficult and stressful labor he must do.
16 I then resolved within myself to try to become as wise as I could. I wanted to observe the difficult parts of people's lives so that I could understand them, even though they can make people so anxious and distressed that they cannot sleep either at night or during the day. 17 When I did this, I thought about everything that God has done. Then, I realized that he has made humanity so that they can never fully comprehend everything that God does in their lives. Although people will never stop trying to understand, they will never succeed. Even if wise people claim that they understand it all, they really cannot.

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