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But, there is one thing that happens to everyone—we all die! Death comes to good people and bad people. Death comes to those who are pure and to those who are not pure. Death comes to those who give sacrifices and to those who don’t give sacrifices. Good people will die just as sinners do. Those who make promises to God will die just as those who are afraid to make those promises.

Of all the things that happen in this life, the worst thing is that all people end life the same way. But it is also very bad that people always think evil and foolish thoughts. And those thoughts lead to death. There is hope for those who are still alive—it does not matter who they are. But this saying is true:

A living dog is better than a dead lion.

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All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good,
    so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
    so with those who are afraid to take them.(A)

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.(B) The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live,(C) and afterward they join the dead.(D) Anyone who is among the living has hope[b]—even a live dog is better off than a dead lion!

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Footnotes

  1. Ecclesiastes 9:2 Septuagint (Aquila), Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew does not have and the bad.
  2. Ecclesiastes 9:4 Or What then is to be chosen? With all who live, there is hope