So banish sorrow from your heart, and cast off pain from your body, for youth and vigor are fleeting.
Parallel translations
- WEB Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, and put away evil from your flesh; for youth and the dawn of life are vanity.
- KJV Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity.
- NKJV Therefore remove sorrow from your heart, And put away evil from your flesh, For childhood and youth are vanity.
- NASB So remove sorrow from your heart and keep pain away from your body, because childhood and the prime of life are fleeting.
- NLT So refuse to worry, and keep your body healthy. But remember that youth, with a whole life before you, is meaningless.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Remove anxiety from your heart and put away evil from your body, for youth and its vigor are fleeting. Live wisely and purely now, since the strength of youth quickly passes.
Overview
Qoheleth urges the young to cast off vexation and sin, making the most of their brief season of vitality. The reminder that youth is fleeting motivates wise, clean living rather than reckless indulgence. This counsel leads directly into the call to remember the Creator, the truly wise use of one's early years (1 Timothy 4:12; 2 Timothy 2:22).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- 2 Cor 7:1Therefore, beloved, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
- 2 Tim 2:22Flee from youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, together with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
- Eccl 1:2“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
- Eccl 1:14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
- Eccl 12:1Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of adversity come and the years approach of which you will say, “I find no pleasure in them,”
- Job 20:11The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie down with him in the dust.
- Ps 39:5You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- 2 Pet 3:11–14Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to conduct yourselves in holiness and godliness
- Ps 90:7–11For we are consumed by Your anger and terrified by Your wrath.
- Job 13:26For You record bitter accusations against me and bequeath to me the iniquities of my youth.
- Ps 25:7Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my rebellious acts; remember me according to Your loving devotion, because of Your goodness, O LORD.
- Prov 22:15Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The search that finds everything 'under the sun' to be vapor exposes the emptiness of life without God and drives us to the one who alone gives meaning, the resurrection that makes our labor not in vain.
How Ecclesiastes 11:10 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.