A Proper Time for Everything

⁹What value, then, can the man of affairs get from what he earns? ¹⁰I have observed the business that God gave man to be concerned with: ¹¹He brings everything to pass precisely at its time; He also puts eternity in their mind,^bbut without man ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass. ¹²Thus I realized that the only worthwhile thing there is for them is to enjoy themselves and do what is good^cin their lifetime; ¹³also, that whenever a man does eat and drink and get enjoyment out of all his wealth, it is a gift of God. [ . . . ]

¹⁷I mused: “God will doom both righteous and wicked, for there is a time for every experience and for every happening.” ¹⁸So I decided, as regards men, to dissociate them [from] the divine beings and to face the fact that they are beasts. ¹⁹For in respect of the fate of man and the fate of beast, they have one and the same fate: as the one dies so dies the other, and both have the same lifebreath; man has no superiority over beast, since both amount to nothing. ²⁰Both go to the same place; both came from dust and both return to dust. ²¹Who knows if a man’s lifebreath does rise upward and if a beast’s breath does sink down into the earth?

²²I saw that there is nothing better for man than to enjoy his possessions, since that is his portion. For who can enable him to see what will happen afterward?