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Ecclesiastes 6

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📖 Ecclesiastes introduction

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1There is another evil I have seen under the sun, and it weighs heavily upon mankind: ✦ 2God gives a man riches, wealth, and honor, so that he lacks nothing his heart desires; but God does not allow him to enjoy them. Instead, a stranger will enjoy them. This is futile and a grievous affliction. ✦ 3A man may father a hundred children and live for many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he is unsatisfied with his prosperity and does not even receive a proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. ✦ 4For a stillborn child enters in futility and departs in darkness, and his name is shrouded in obscurity. ✦ 5The child, though neither seeing the sun nor knowing anything, has more rest than that man, ✦ 6even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place? ✦ 7All a man’s labor is for his mouth, yet his appetite is never satisfied. ✦ 8What advantage, then, has the wise man over the fool? What gain comes to the poor man who knows how to conduct himself before others? ✦ 9Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind. ✦ 10Whatever exists was named long ago, and what happens to a man is foreknown; but he cannot contend with one stronger than he. ✦ 11For the more words, the more futility—and how does that profit anyone? ✦ 12For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him under the sun? ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Eccl 5 ·8Eccl 4 ·7Eccl 2 ·6Eccl 3 ·5Eccl 1 ·5Job 14 ·41 Chr 29 ·3Ps 39 ·3

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 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.

Resources, by level

Lay

  • ★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical

    A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

  • SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical

    Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Commentaries & study tools

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