Rhyming Ecclesiastes: Chapter 3

Rhyming Ecclesiastes: Chapter 3

There is a time for everything beneath
the heavens, and for each activity,
a season, all for these, appointed times:
a time for birthing, also one to die,
a time to plant and also to uproot,
a time to kill, then healing to pursue,
a time to tear down, one to build anew,
a time to weep, and too, a time to laugh,
a time to mourn, and also, time to dance,
a time to scatter stones, to gather them,
embracing’s time, and also abstinence,
a time to search, and also, to give up,
a time to keep and one to outwards, thrust,
a time to tear, time too, to mending seek,
a time for silence, and a time to speak,
a time to love, and too, a time to hate,
a time for war, then also, peace to make.

What, from their toil, do workers ever gain?
I’ve see the burden on the human race
that God has laid. How everything, he’s made,
in its time, beautiful. Eternity,
that, set inside the human heart, has he;
yet none can fathom things that God has done
from the beginning, to the end, its sum.

I know, for people, nothing better is
to happy, be, and do good while they live.
That each of them may eat and drink their fill,
find satisfaction in all of their toil–
this is the gift of God. It will endure,
I know that everything God does, fore’er;
can nothing to it, ever, added, be
and nothing from, can anyone delete.
God does this so that, fear of him, they’ll feel.

Whatever is, it has already been,
what’s been before, it will be once again.
To full account, how God, the past attends.
And I saw something else beneath the sun:
in judgment’s place–there, wickedness had won,
in place of justice–wickedness was done.
I, to myself said, “Both them, God will bring
to judgment, righteous, wicked, everything,
for each activity, there’ll be a time,
when ev’ry deed is judged, if any, right.”

I also said to myself, “As for them,
for humans, God will put them to the test
so they may see they’re like the animals.
For sure, the fate of them, identical:
just as one dies, so too, the other dies.
All have the same breath, how they both respire.
O’er animals, men, no advantages.
In this, I saw all things were meaningless.
All go to the same place; all come from dust,
as well, all of them, unto dust, descend.
Who knows if, upward, where it will ascend,
the human spirit, of the animal,
its spirit, earthwards, subterrestrial?

So I saw that there’s nothing better for
a person than to full enjoy their work
because that is their lot. So what’s in store?
Whoe’er can show them, how they’ll ever know?