To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
Parallel translations
- WEB For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
- BSB To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under 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 mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.
- Matt 16:3And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
- Eccl 8:5–6Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man’s heart discerneth both time and judgment.
- Eccl 7:14In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider: God also hath set the one over against the other, to the end that man should find nothing after him.
- 2 Kgs 5:26And he said unto him, Went not mine heart with thee, when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? Is it a time to receive money, and to receive garments, and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep, and oxen, and menservants, and maidservants?
- Prov 15:23A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word spoken in due season, how good is it!
- 2 Chr 33:12And when he was in affliction, he besought the LORD his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers,
- Eccl 2:3I sought in mine heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom; and to lay hold on folly, till I might see what was that good for the sons of men, which they should do under the heaven all the days of their life.
- Eccl 2:17Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
- Eccl 1:13And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
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.