Ecclesiastes 5:4-7

Rachel Workman: ⁴ When you make a promise to God, don’t delay in following through, for God takes no pleasure in fools. Keep all the promises you make to him. ⁵ It is better to say nothing than to make a promise and not keep it. ⁶ Don’t let your mouth make you sin. And don’t defend yourself by telling the Temple messenger that the promise you made was a mistake. That would make God angry, and he might wipe out everything you have achieved.

⁷ Talk is cheap, like daydreams and other useless activities. Fear God instead.

Very good advice still today.

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Tomorrow’s reading for Ecclesiastes 5:8-11

⁸ Don’t be surprised if you see a poor person being oppressed by the powerful and if justice is being miscarried throughout the land. For every official is under orders from higher up, and matters of justice get lost in red tape and bureaucracy. ⁹ Even the king milks the land for his own profit!^[c]

¹⁰ Those who love money will never have enough. How meaningless to think that wealth brings true happiness! ¹¹ The more you have, the more people come to help you spend it. So what good is wealth—except perhaps to watch it slip through your fingers!