1 Cast your bread on the water for after a given time you will find it again.

2 Share with seven or even with eight for you never know what misfortune may strike the earth.

3 When clouds are heavy, rain falls on the earth and when a tree falls facing south or north there in that place it will lie.

4 He who watches the wind will not sow and he who watches the clouds will not reap.

5 Just as you do not know how the spirit pervades the members in the mother’s womb, neither will you un derstand the work of God, creator of all things.

6 Sow your seed in the morning and do not be idle until the evening for you don’t know whether one or the other will succeed. What if both prove to be good?

So man goes forward to his eternal home

7 Light is pleasant and it is good for the eyes to see the sun.

8 If a man lives for many years, let him rejoice in them all, thinking that dark days will be many and all that comes after will be meaningless.

9 Rejoice, young man, in your youth and direct well your heart when you are young; follow your desires and achieve your ambitions but recall that God will take account of all you do.

10 Drive sorrow from your heart and pain from your flesh, for youth and dark hair will not last.

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Comments Eclesiastes (Qohelet), Chapter 11

• 11.7 Light is pleasant. Here begin marvelous words in praise of life. Ecclesiastes does not see how to justify the action of God but he discovers him in the order of the world. An order to be respected, without a doubt, but he says that the beauty of nature invites a human to be creative and fulfill his desires. We may be astonished that many preachers have had Ecclesiastes say: “Think of death and flee the happiness of the world!” Here we have thanksgiving and a call to freedom.

Be mindful of your Creator when you are young (12:1). It will not be the time to turn to God when our strength and pleasures are over: “the beautiful woman has no more lovers, she has entered a convent.” Why re mem ber our Creator? Because this remembering, which little by little will become a presence for us, is one of the conditions of our joy. The bitterness of old age does not affect those who have chosen God in their youth; at the end of their life they can repeat the words of the psalm: I shall go towards God, the joy of my youth.