In Ecclesiastes, there is the call to plant, to love, to live, and to work and then to enjoy the fruits of all one’s labors (3rd Century BC)
Found in: The Parallel Old Testament (KJV and Revised V)
The presumed writer, King Solomon expressed these sentiments in this passage found in Ecclesiastes 3: 1-13, one of the books of the Old Testament. It might be familiar as they were used in a well-known song from the 1960s:
Religion & Toleration
- To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
- A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which 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 of war, and a time of peace.
- What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
- I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.
- He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.
- I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.
- And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.