Read the Bible

¹ where as no man hath wy?dome & vnderstodinge, to geue answere there vnto. Wy?dome maketh a mas face to shyne, but malice putteth it out of fauoure.² Kepe the kynges commaundemet (I warne the) & the ooth yt thou hast made vnto God.³ Be not haistie to go out of his sight, & se thou cotynue in no euell thinge: for what so euer it pleaseth him, yt doeth he.⁴ Like as when a kynge geueth a charge, his commaundement is mightie: Euen so who maye saye vnto him: what doest thou?⁵ Who so kepeth the commaundement, shall fele no harme: but a wyse mans herte discerneth tyme and maner:

⁶ For euery thinge wil haue opportunite and iudgment, and this is the thinge that maketh men full of carefulnes & sorowe.⁷ And why? a man knoweth not what is for to come, for who wyll tell him?⁸ Nether is there eny ma yt hath power ouer ye sprete, to kepe stil ye sprete, ner to haue eny power in the tyme of death: It is not he also that can make an ende of the batayll, nether maye vngodlynes delyuer him yt medleth withall.

⁹ All these thinges haue I considered, and applied my mynde vnto euery worke that is vnder the Sonne: how one man hath lordshipe vpon another to his owne harme.¹⁰ For I haue oft sene ye vngodly brought to their graues, and fallen downe from the hye and glorious place: in so moch yt they were forgotten in the cite, where they were had in so hye & greate reputacion. This is also a vayne thinge.¹¹ Because now that euell workes are not haistely punyshed, the hert of man geueth him self ouer vnto wickednesse:¹² But though an euell personne offende an hundreth tymes, and haue a longe life: yet am I sure, that it shal go well with the that feare God, because they haue him before their eyes.¹³ Agayne, as for the vngodly, it shall not be well with him, nether shal he prologe his dayes: but euen as a shadowe, so shall he be that feareth not God.

¹⁴ Yet is there a vanite vpon earth: There be iust men, vnto whom it happeneth, as though they had the workes of the vngodly: Agayne, there be vngodly, with whom it goeth as though they had the workes of ye rightuous. This me thinke also a vaine thinge.¹⁵ Therfore I commende gladnesse, because a man hath no better thinge vnder the Sonne, then to eate and drynke, and to be mery: for that shal he haue of his laboure all the daies of his life, which God geueth him vnder the Sonne.+¹⁶ When I applied my mynde to lerne wy?dome, and to knowe the trauayle that is in the worlde (and that of soch a fashion, yt I suffred not myne eyes to slepe nether daye ner night)¹⁷ I vnderstode of all ye workes of God, that it is not possible for a man, to attayne vnto ye workes that are done vnder ye Sonne: and though he bestowe his laboure to seke them out, yet can he not reach vnto the: yee though a wyse man wolde vndertake to knowe them, yet might he not fynde them.