To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
Parallel translations
- WEB For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
- KJV To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
- NKJV To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven:
- NASB There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every matter under heaven—
- NLT For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven.
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
For everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven. God orders the times and seasons of human life according to His sovereign plan.
Overview
This famous verse introduces a poem affirming that all of life unfolds within God's appointed times. Rather than random chaos, human experience has order and seasonality under God's providence. The truth that God governs every time and season invites trust in His wise sovereignty, fulfilled in Christ, who came in 'the fullness of time' (Galatians 4:4).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Eccl 3:17I said in my heart, “God will judge the righteous and the wicked, since there is a time for every activity and every deed.”
- Matt 16:3and in the morning, ‘Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.’ You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but not the signs of the times.
- Eccl 8:5–6Whoever keeps his command will come to no harm, and a wise heart knows the right time and procedure.
- Eccl 7:14In the day of prosperity, be joyful, but in the day of adversity, consider this: God has made one of these along with the other, so that a man cannot discover anything that will come after him.
- 2 Kgs 5:26But Elisha questioned him, “Did not my spirit go with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to accept money and clothing, olive groves and vineyards, sheep and oxen, menservants and maidservants?
- Prov 15:23A man takes joy in a fitting reply—and how good is a timely word!
- 2 Chr 33:12And in his distress, Manasseh sought the favor of the LORD his God and earnestly humbled himself before the God of his fathers.
- Eccl 2:3I sought to cheer my body with wine and to embrace folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.
- Eccl 2:17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.
- Eccl 1:13And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 3:1 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.