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Updated Bible Version

Ecclesiastes 9:7

Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Contentment;   Thompson Chain Reference - Epicureans;   Joy;   Joy-Sorrow;   Merriment;   Mirth;   Pleasure, Worldly;   Self-Indulgence-Self-Denial;   Worldly;   The Topic Concordance - Deeds;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Anointing;  

Dictionaries:

- Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Bread;   Food;   Grapes;   Joy;   Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology - Death, Mortality;   Fausset Bible Dictionary - Banquets;   Ecclesiastes, the Book of;   Holman Bible Dictionary - Ecclesiastes, Book of;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Ecclesiastes;  

Encyclopedias:

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia - Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher;   Wine;   Wisdom;   The Jewish Encyclopedia - Atonement;   Bat Ḳol;   Essenes;   Happiness;   Joy;   Samuel ben Jonah;   Teḥina, Abba;  

Devotionals:

- Every Day Light - Devotion for August 25;  

Parallel Translations

Legacy Standard Bible
Go then, eat your bread in gladness and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
Go then, eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Go thou thy way then, eate thy bread with ioy, & drinke thy wine with a glad heart, for thy workes please god:
Darby Translation
Go, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.
New King James Version
Go, eat your bread with joy, And drink your wine with a merry heart; For God has already accepted your works.
Literal Translation
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God now is pleased with your works.
Easy-to-Read Version
So go and eat your food now and enjoy it. Drink your wine and be happy. It is all right with God if you do these things.
World English Bible
Go your way -- eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.
King James Version (1611)
Goe thy way, eate thy bread with ioy, and drinke thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy workes.
King James Version
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Go thou yi waye then, eate thy bred with ioye, & drynke yi wyne wt gladnesse, for thy workes please God.
THE MESSAGE
Seize life! Eat bread with gusto, Drink wine with a robust heart. Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure! Dress festively every morning. Don't skimp on colors and scarves. Relish life with the spouse you love Each and every day of your precarious life. Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange For the hard work of staying alive. Make the most of each one! Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily! This is your last and only chance at it, For there's neither work to do nor thoughts to think In the company of the dead, where you're most certainly headed.
Amplified Bible
Go your way, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a cheerful heart [if you are righteous, wise, and in the hands of God]; for God has already approved and accepted your works.
American Standard Version
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.
Bible in Basic English
Come, take your bread with joy, and your wine with a glad heart. God has taken pleasure in your works.
Webster's Bible Translation
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works.
New English Translation
Go, eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, because God has already approved your works.
Contemporary English Version
Be happy and enjoy eating and drinking! God decided long ago that this is what you should do.
Complete Jewish Bible
So go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God has already accepted your deeds.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Goe, eate thy bread with ioy, & drinke thy wine with a cheerefull heart: for God nowe accepteth thy workes.
George Lamsa Translation
Come now, eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God is pleased with your works.
Hebrew Names Version
Go your way -- eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.
New Living Translation
So go ahead. Eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a happy heart, for God approves of this!
New Life Bible
Go and eat your bread in happiness. Drink your wine with a happy heart. For God has already been pleased with your works.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Go, eat thy bread with mirth, and drink thy wine with a joyful heart; for now God has favourably accepted thy works.
English Revised Version
Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God hath already accepted thy works.
Berean Standard Bible
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already approved your works:
New Revised Standard
Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Go thy way - eat, with gladness, thy food, and drink, with a happy heart, thy wine, - when already God is well pleased with thy works.
Douay-Rheims Bible
Go then, and eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with gladness: because thy works please God.
Lexham English Bible
Go—eat your food with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart! For God already has approved your deeds.
English Standard Version
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
New American Standard Bible
Go then, eat your bread in happiness, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.
New Century Version
So go eat your food and enjoy it; drink your wine and be happy, because that is what God wants you to do.
Good News Translation
Go ahead—eat your food and be happy; drink your wine and be cheerful. It's all right with God.
Christian Standard Bible®
Go, eat your bread with pleasure, and drink your wine with a cheerful heart, for God has already accepted your works.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Therfor go thou, iust man, and ete thi breed in gladnesse, and drynke thi wiyn with ioie; for thi werkis plesen God.
Revised Standard Version
Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already approved what you do.
Young's Literal Translation
Go, eat with joy thy bread, and drink with a glad heart thy wine, for already hath God been pleased with thy works.

Contextual Overview

4 For to him that is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion. 5 For the living know that they shall die: but the dead don't know anything, neither have they a reward anymore; for the memory of them is forgotten. 6 Their love as well, as their hatred and their envy, has perished long ago; neither have they anymore a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun. 7 Go your way, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works. 8 Let your garments always be white; and don't let your head lack oil. 9 Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor wherein you labor under the sun. 10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do [it] with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you go.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

Go: Genesis 12:19, Mark 7:29, John 4:50

eat: Ecclesiastes 2:24-26, Ecclesiastes 3:12, Ecclesiastes 3:13, Ecclesiastes 5:18, Ecclesiastes 8:15, Ecclesiastes 10:19, Deuteronomy 12:7, Deuteronomy 12:12, Deuteronomy 16:14, Deuteronomy 16:15, 1 Kings 8:66, 1 Chronicles 16:1-3, 1 Chronicles 29:21-23, 2 Chronicles 30:23-27, Nehemiah 8:10-12

for: Genesis 4:4, Genesis 4:5, Exodus 24:8-11, Luke 11:41, Acts 10:35

Reciprocal: Genesis 29:1 - Jacob Genesis 43:34 - were merry Exodus 24:11 - did eat Numbers 6:20 - and after Deuteronomy 14:26 - rejoice Ruth 3:7 - his heart 1 Samuel 1:18 - went her 2 Samuel 13:28 - heart is merry 1 Kings 18:41 - Get 1 Chronicles 29:22 - eat and drink Job 42:9 - Job Psalms 104:15 - oil to make his Proverbs 17:22 - merry Ecclesiastes 3:22 - nothing Isaiah 24:9 - General Jeremiah 22:15 - eat Jeremiah 31:16 - for Jeremiah 35:5 - Drink Matthew 8:13 - Go Matthew 9:2 - be Mark 5:34 - go Luke 7:50 - go Luke 18:14 - went John 2:11 - beginning Acts 2:46 - did Acts 9:19 - when Romans 14:18 - is 1 Corinthians 7:31 - use

Cross-References

Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them: and God said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Genesis 8:17
Bring forth with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, both birds, and cattle, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth; that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth.
Genesis 9:1
And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth.
Genesis 9:19
These three were the sons of Noah: and of these was the whole earth spread over.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Go thy way,.... Thou righteous man, as Jarchi paraphrases it; and indeed epicures and voluptuous persons have no need of the following exhortation, and the reason annexed is not suitable to them; but the whole agrees better with religious persons, who under distressing views of Providence, and from gloomy and melancholy apprehensions of things, and mistaken notions of mortification, deny themselves the free and lawful use of the good things of life; and seeing there is no enjoyment of them in the grave, and after death, therefore let the following advice be taken, than which of worldly things nothing is better for a man to do;

eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; which includes all things necessary and convenient, and which should be used and enjoyed freely and cheerfully; not barely for refreshment, but recreation; not for necessity only, but for pleasure; yet with moderation, not to excess; and with thankfulness to God; and the rather joy and mirth should mix with these things, since to a good man they are in love. It may be observed that it is said "thy bread [and] thy wine", thine own and not another's; what is got by labour, and in an honest way, and not by rapine and oppression, as Alshech observes; what God in his providence gives, our daily food, what is convenient for us, or is our portion and allotment. The Targum interprets it figuratively of the joys of heaven;

"Solomon said, by a spirit of prophecy from the Lord, the Lord of the world will say to all the righteous, in the face of everyone, eat thy bread with joy, which is laid up for thee, for thy bread which thou hast given to the poor and needy that were hungry; and drink thy wine with a good heart, which is laid up for thee in paradise, for the wine which thou hast mingled for the poor and needy that were thirsty;''

see Matthew 25:34;

for God now accepteth thy works; both the persons of righteous and good men are accepted of God in Christ, and their works done in faith and love, and with a view to his glory; and since they are acceptable in his sight, as appears by his blessing on their labours, and bestowing the good things of life upon them, so it is well pleasing in his sight to make a free and cheerful use of them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Read these six verses connectedly, in order to arrive at the meaning of the writer; and compare Ecclesiastes 2:1-12.

After the description Ecclesiastes 9:5-6 of the portionless condition of the dead, the next thought which occurs is that the man who is prosperous and active should simply enjoy his portion all through this life Ecclesiastes 9:7-10; and then Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 follows the correcting thought (see Ecclesiastes 3:1-15 note), introduced as usual Ecclesiastes 2:12; Ecclesiastes 4:1, Ecclesiastes 4:7 by “I returned,” namely, that the course of events is disposed and regulated by another will than that of man.

The person addressed is one whose life of labor is already pleasing to God, and who bears visible tokens of God’s favor.

Ecclesiastes 9:7

Now accepteth - Rather: “already has pleasure in.” Joy (the marginal reference note) is regarded as a sign of the approbation and favor of God.

Ecclesiastes 9:8

White garments and perfume are simply an expressive sign of joy.

Ecclesiastes 9:10

The works which we carry on here with the combined energies of body and soul come to an end in the hour of death, when the soul enters a new sphere of existence, and body and soul cease to act together. Compare John 9:4.

Device - See Ecclesiastes 7:25 note.

Ecclesiastes 9:11

Chance - Or, “incident,” that which comes to us from without, one of the external events described in Ecclesiastes 3:0. Compare Ecclesiastes 2:14 note.

Ecclesiastes 9:12

Time - See Ecclesiastes 3:1 ff.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Ecclesiastes 9:7. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy — Do not vex and perplex yourselves with the dispensations and mysteries of Providence; enjoy the blessings which God has given you, and live to his glory; and then God will accept your works.


 
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