Rhyming Ecclesiastes: Chapter 8

Rhyming Ecclesiastes: Chapter 8

Who’s like the wise? Of things, whoever knows
their explanation? How it makes it glow,
will wisdom brighten someone in their face,
its hard appearance, wisdom, it will change.

Obey the King

Obey the king’s command, because, I say,
you took an oath, before God, what you made.
You find yourself, the presence of the king,
don’t hurry quickly, from his throne, to leave.
You shouldn’t ever stand for a bad cause,
for he will do whatever, him, will please.
Who can say to the king, his word’s supreme:
“What are you doing, this activity?”
Whoe’er obeys what he commands will come
to no harm, and the wise in heart, the time
they’ll know, when’s proper and proced’rally.
For every matter, proper times and ways,
e’en though by misery, they’re downwards weighed.
Since no one knows the future, who can tell
what is to come for them, for someone else?
As no one has, o’er wind, pow’r to contain,
so no one has pow’r o’er their death, its date.
As no one is discharged in time of war,
so wickedness won’t, its practitioners,
release them. How I witnessed this design

as I, to everything, applied my mind,
that’s done beneath the sun. There is a time
when, over others, to his detriment,
a man will lord it over to their hurt.
Then too, I saw the wickeds’ burials–
those who would come and go, where they’re praised well,
the holy place, the city, they did this.
This also, something that is meaningless.

Whene’er the sentence for a crime delayed,
with schemes to do wrong, people’s hearts are filled.
Although a wicked person who commits
a hundred crimes, for a long time, may live,
I know that it will go much better with
those fearing God, who’re reverent ‘fore him.
Because the wicked, yet, do not fear God,
it won’t go well with them, the paths they trod,
and days, like shadows, ne’er grow long, will theirs.

There’s something else that here on earth occurs
that’s meaningless: the righteous who receive
that, what the wicked, they instead, deserve,
and, they, the wicked, this is what they get:
the things that should be paid to righteous men.
This too, I saw, is something meaningless.
So, life’s enjoyment, that, what I commend,
because there’s nothing that is better than
a person, eating, drinking, ‘neath the sun,
and being glad. Then joy accomp’nies them
in that, their toil, all of the days, their lives
God’s given them to live ‘neath sun and sky.

When I, for wisdom’s knowledge, would, my mind
apply, and labor, done on earth, observe–
the sleepless days and nights that men endure–
the I saw all that God has done. No one
can comprehend what goes on ‘neath the sun.
To search it out, despite all efforts made,
no one, its meaning, can e’er ascertain.
E’en if the wise would claim that they know it,
to comprehend it, really, they cannot.