Ecclesiastes 8 Who is wyse? Who hath knowledge to make answere? A mans wysdome maketh hys face to shine: but vnshamefastnes putteth it out of fauoure.

Great⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ Who is wyse? Who hath knowledge to make answere? A mans wysdome maketh hys face to shine: but vnshamefastnes putteth it out of fauoure. ² I must kepe the kynges commaundement, and the oth that I haue made vnto God. ³ Be not hastye to go out of hys syght, and se thou continue in no euell thinge: for whatsoeuer it pleaseth hym, that doeth he. ⁴ Lyke as when a kynge geueth a charge, his commaundement is myghtye: 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 the tyme & iudgement: ⁶ For euery thing will haue oportunite & iudgement, and this is the thynge that maketh men full of carefulnes and sorowe. ⁷ And why? a man knoweth not what is for to come: for who wyll tell him? ⁸ Nether is there eny man that hath power ouer the sprete, to kepe styll the sprete, ner to haue eny power in the tyme of death: is it not he also that can make an ende of the battayle, nether maye vngodlynes deliuer them that medle with all. ⁹ All these thinges haue I considered, and applied my mynde vnto euery worcke that is vnder the sonne: howe one man hath lordshype vpon another to his awne harme. ¹⁰ For I haue seane often the vngodly brought to ther graues: and yet they haue retorned into the citye ageyne, and came from the place of holy men, which in the citye were growen out of memory as were those also that lyued well. Thys is also a vayne thynge. ¹¹ Because now that euell worckes are not hastely punysshed, the hert of man geueth hym selfe ouer vnto wyckednesse. ¹² But though an euell persone offende an hundred tymes, & God differ gyuinge him longe lyfe: yet am I sure, that it shal go well wt them that feare God, because they haue him before their eyes. ¹³ Agayne, as for the vngodly it shall not be well wt him, nether shall he prolonge his dayes: but euen as a shadowe, so shall he be that feareth not God. ¹⁴ Yet is there a vanyte vpon earth: There be iust men, vnto whom it happeneth, as though they had the worckes of the vngodly: Agayne, there be vngodly, with whom it goeth as though they had the workes of the ryghteous. Thys haue I called also a vayne thyng. ¹⁵ Therfore I commende gladnesse, because a man hath no better thing vnder the Sunne, then to eate and dryncke, & to be mery: for that shall he haue of his labour all the dayes of his lyfe, which God geueth him vnder the sunne. ¹⁶ And so I applied my mynde to learne wysdome, & to knowe the trauayle that is in the worlde (and that of soch a fassyon, that I suffred not myne eyes to slepe nether daye ner nyght) ¹⁷ I vnderstode of all the workes of God, but it is not possible for a man, to attayne vnto the workes that are done vnder the Sunne: and though he bestowe his laboure to seke them out, yet can he not reach vnto them: yee though a wyse man wolde vntertake to knowe them, yet shall he not fynde them.