Ecclesiastes 3:1-18,
TO EVERYTHING there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven:
A time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to pluck up what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to cast away, a time to rend and a time to sew, a time to keep silence and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.
What profit remains for the worker from his toil? I have seen the painful labor and exertion and miserable business which The Creator has given to the sons of men with which to exercise and busy themselves.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but The Creator alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what The Creator has done from the beginning to the end.
I know that there is nothing better for them than to be glad and to get and do good as long as they live; and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his labor–it is the gift from the Creator.
