Ecclesiastes 9:3

Read in context

Ecclesiastes 9:1–5 · Berean Standard Bible

1 So I took all this to heart and concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their deeds, are in God’s hands. Man does not know what lies ahead, whether love or hate.

2 It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow.

3 This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and afterward they join the dead.

4 There is hope, however, for anyone who is among the living; for even a live dog is better than a dead lion.

5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten.

Hebrew words

Data created by STEPBible.org based on work at Tyndale House Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Study Ecclesiastes 9:3

Read the commentary on Ecclesiastes 9

Cross-references

The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge lists these related verses. Scripture text comes from the Berean Standard Bible.

Ecclesiastes 8:11

When the sentence for a crime is not speedily executed, the hearts of men become fully set on doing evil.

Genesis 6:5

Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.

Genesis 8:21

When the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, He said in His heart, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from his youth. And never again will I destroy all living creatures as I have done.

Job 15:16

how much less man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water?

Psalms 51:5

Surely I was brought forth in iniquity; I was sinful when my mother conceived me.

Jeremiah 17:9

The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Matthew 15:19

For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander.

Matthew 15:20

These are what defile a man, but eating with unwashed hands does not defile him.”

Mark 7:21

For from within the hearts of men come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

Mark 7:22

greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.

Mark 7:23

All these evils come from within, and these are what defile a man.”

Romans 1:29

They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips,

Romans 1:30

slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent new forms of evil; they disobey their parents.

Romans 1:31

They are senseless, faithless, heartless, merciless.

Titus 3:3

For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.

Ecclesiastes 1:17

So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.

Ecclesiastes 7:25

I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness.

Luke 6:11

But the scribes and Pharisees were filled with rage and began to discuss with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Luke 15:17

Finally he came to his senses and said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have plenty of food? But here I am, starving to death!

Acts 26:11

I frequently had them punished in the synagogues, and I tried to make them blaspheme. In my raging fury against them, I even went to foreign cities to persecute them.

Acts 26:24

At this stage of Paul’s defense, Festus exclaimed in a loud voice, “You are insane, Paul! Your great learning is driving you to madness!”

2 Peter 2:16

But he was rebuked for his transgression by a donkey, otherwise without speech, that spoke with a man’s voice and restrained the prophet’s madness.

Ecclesiastes 12:7

before the dust returns to the ground from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Proverbs 14:32

The wicked man is thrown down by his own sin, but the righteous man has a refuge even in death.

Acts 12:23

Immediately, because Herod did not give glory to God, an angel of the Lord struck him down, and he was eaten by worms and died.