.
Remember Your
Creator
.
“For there will come a time when your
limbs will
tremble with age, your strong legs will become weak, and your teeth will be too
few to do their work, and there will be blindness too.”
1 Don’t let the excitement of
being young cause you to forget about your Creator. Honor him in your youth
before the evil years come—when you’ll no longer enjoy living.
2 It will
be too late then to try to remember him when the sun and light and moon and
stars are dim to your old eyes, and there is no silver lining left among your
clouds.
3
For there will come a time when your limbs will
tremble with age, your strong legs will become weak, and your teeth will be too
few to do their work, and there will be blindness too.
4 Then let
your lips be tightly closed while eating when your teeth are gone! And you will
waken at dawn with the first note of the birds; but you yourself will be deaf
and tuneless, with quavering voice.
5
You will be afraid of heights and of falling—a
white-haired, withered old man, dragging himself along: without sexual desire,
standing at death’s door, and nearing his everlasting home as the mourners go
along the streets.
6
Yes, remember your Creator now while you are
young—before the silver cord of life snaps and the gold bowl is broken; before
the pitcher is broken at the fountain and the wheel is broken at the
cistern;
7 then the dust returns to
the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
8 All is futile, says the
Preacher; utterly futile.
9
But then, because the Preacher was wise, he went
on teaching the people all he knew; and he collected proverbs and classified
them.
10 For the Preacher was not
only a wise man but a good teacher; he not only taught what he knew to the
people, but taught them in an interesting manner.
11 The wise man’s words are
like goads that spur to action. They nail down important truths. Students are
wise who master what their teachers tell them.
12
But, my son, be warned: there is no end of
opinions ready to be expressed. Studying them can go on forever and become very
exhausting!
13
Here is my final conclusion: fear God and obey
his commandments, for this is the entire duty of man.
14 For God will judge us for
everything we do, including every hidden thing, good or bad. Ecclesiastes
12 Living Bible (TLB)
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