Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, and do not tell the messenger that your vow was a mistake. Why should God be angry with your words and destroy the work of your hands?
Parallel translations
- WEB Don’t allow your mouth to lead you into sin. Don’t protest before the messenger that this was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice, and destroy the work of your hands?
- KJV Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin; neither say thou before the angel, that it was an error: wherefore should God be angry at thy voice, and destroy the work of thine hands?
- NKJV Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?
- NASB Do not let your speech cause you to sin, and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice, and destroy the work of your hands?
- NLT Don’t let your mouth make you sin. And don’t defend yourself by telling the Temple messenger that the promise you made was a mistake. That would make God angry, and he might wipe out everything you have achieved.
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
Don't let careless speech lead you into sin, then excuse a broken vow as a mistake, lest God be angered and undo your work. It matters because trifling with vows provokes real divine displeasure.
Overview
The Preacher warns against using flippant excuses before the 'messenger' (likely a priest or temple official) to escape a vow's obligation. Such carelessness invites God's judgment on one's labors. The passage underscores the seriousness of words spoken before God and the reverent fear that should govern them, a reverence fulfilled in those who, through Christ, learn to honor God in all their speech.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 18
- Jas 1:26If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not bridle his tongue, he deceives his heart and his religion is worthless.
- 2 Jn 1:8Watch yourselves, so that you do not lose what we have worked for, but that you may be fully rewarded.
- Jas 3:2We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to control his whole body.
- Mal 2:7For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, because he is the messenger of the LORD of Hosts.
- Eccl 5:1–2Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.
- Lev 5:4–6Or if someone swears thoughtlessly with his lips to do anything good or evil—in whatever matter a man may rashly pronounce an oath—even if he is unaware of it, when he realizes it, he is guilty in the matter.
- Gen 48:16the angel who has redeemed me from all harm—may He bless these boys. And may they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they grow into a multitude upon the earth.”
- Num 15:25The priest is to make atonement for the whole congregation of Israel, so that they may be forgiven; for the sin was unintentional and they have brought to the LORD an offering made by fire and a sin offering, presented before the LORD for their unintentional sin.
- 1 Cor 3:13–15his workmanship will be evident, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will prove the quality of each man’s work.
- Heb 1:14Are not the angels ministering spirits sent to serve those who will inherit salvation?
- Mal 3:1“Behold, I will send My messenger, who will prepare the way before Me. Then the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple—the Messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight—see, He is coming,” says the LORD of Hosts.
- 1 Cor 11:10For this reason a woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head, because of the angels.
- Acts 7:30–35After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai.
- Hos 12:4–5Yes, he struggled with the angel and prevailed; he wept and sought His favor; he found Him at Bethel and spoke with Him there—
- 1 Tim 5:21I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus and the elect angels to maintain these principles without bias, and to do nothing out of partiality.
- Lev 27:9–10If he vows an animal that may be brought as an offering to the LORD, any such animal given to the LORD shall be holy.
- Hag 2:14–17Then Haggai replied, “So it is with this people and this nation before Me, declares the LORD, and so it is with every work of their hands; whatever they offer there is defiled.
- Hag 1:9–11You expected much, but behold, it amounted to little. And what you brought home, I blew away. Why? declares the LORD of Hosts. Because My house still lies in ruins, while each of you is busy with his own house.
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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 5:6 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
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