Words, Wealth, and What Really Matters — Ecclesiastes

The Preacher begins with advice for anyone going to the house of God. Be more ready to listen than to offer the sacrifice of fools. Do not be rash with your mouth, and do not be hasty to say anything before God, because God is in heaven and you are on earth. Let your words be few. A dream comes with a crowd of tasks, and a fool's voice is known by a crowd of words. A vow made to God should be paid and not put off, because he has no pleasure in fools. It is better not to vow than to vow and not pay, and no one should tell the messenger afterwards that it was a mistake.

Then he turns to what he has seen in the provinces: the poor oppressed, and justice and judgement twisted. He tells the listener not to be amazed. The one who is higher than the highest watches, and there are others higher still. The profit of the earth is for all, he adds, and even the king is served by the field.

On money he is blunt. Whoever loves silver is never satisfied with silver, and when goods increase, so do those who eat them. What does the owner get, he asks, except to look at them with his eyes? The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much, but the fullness of the rich will not let the rich man sleep. He has seen a sore evil: riches kept by their owner to his own hurt, then lost in a bad venture, and a son born with nothing in his hand. As he came from his mother's womb, naked he will go, and he will take nothing of his labour with him. All his days he eats in darkness, with much sorrow and anger.

Yet he ends the chapter with what he has seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink, and to enjoy the fruit of one's labour in the days God gives, for that is a person's portion. When God gives someone riches and the power to enjoy them, that is the gift of God. Such a person does not look back much on the days of his life, because God answers him in the joy of his heart.