1. Guard your feet when you go to the house of God, and draw near to hear, more than to give a sacrifice, as do the fools. For they do not know that they are doing evil.
2. Do not be hasty with your mouth, and do not let your heart hurry to bring forth a word before God. For God is in Heaven, and you are on earth; on account of this, let your words be few.
3. For the dream comes through the greatness of the task; and the voice of the fool is known by the many words.
4. When you vow a vow to God, do not wait to fulfill it. For He has no pleasure in fools. Fulfill that which you have vowed.
5. It is better that you should not vow, than that you should vow and not fulfill it.
6. Do not allow your mouth to cause your flesh to sin; do not say before the angel that it was an error. Why should God be angry over your voice, and destroy the work of your hands?
7. For in the multitude of dreams, both words and vanities abound; but fear God.
8. If you see the oppression of the poor, or the removing of justice and righteousness in the province, do not be amazed at the purpose. For a high one over a high one is watching; and high ones are over them.
9. And the advantage of a land, it is among all; even a king has a field being tilled.
10. He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; and he who loves abundance does not gain. This is also vanity.
11. When the good thing increases, those who devour it increase; then what profit is it to its owners, except to see it with his eyes?
12. The sleep of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much. But the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.
13. There is a painful evil which I have seen under the sun: riches being kept for their owner to his evil;
14. but those riches perish by an evil use; and he fathers a son, and nothing is in his hand.
15. As he came forth from his mother's womb naked, he shall return to go as he came. And from his labor he may not carry anything that may go in his hand.
16. And this also is a painful evil, that in all, as he came, so shall he go. And what profit is to him who has labored for the wind?
17. Also all his days he eats in darkness, and with much grief, along with his sickness and wrath.
18. See what I have seen: It is good which a laborer does to eat and to drink and to see good in all his labor which as a laborer does under the sun, the number of the days of his life which God gives to him, for it is his portion.
19. Also every man to whom God has given riches and treasures, and gives him power to eat of it, and to take his share, and to rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God.
20. For he shall not much remember the days of his life, because God answers him in the joy of his heart.