Ecclesiastes 11:1-6
New Catholic Bible
Chapter 11
The Splendid Adventure of Life[a]
1 Cast your bread upon the waters,[b]
and eventually you will get it back.
2 Share with seven or with eight,[c]
for you never can predict what disasters will come.
3 When clouds are full of rain,
they will pour it out upon the earth.
Whether a tree falls to the south or to the north,
wherever it falls, there will it lie.
4 One who continues to watch the wind will never sow,
and one who keeps staring at the clouds will never reap.
5 Just as you do not know the path of the wind
or how the body is formed in a woman’s womb,
so you do not know the work of God,
the Creator of all.
6 In the morning sow your seed,[d]
and do not cease your labor until evening.
For you do not know which of the sowings will succeed
or whether all alike will turn out well.
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 11:1 Qoheleth calls upon us to take risks. This alone depends on us, while everything else remains in the mystery of God. Qoheleth has called upon us to trust in God without having recourse to pathetic discourses and taught us the true hope, one based on the proof of facts.
- Ecclesiastes 11:1 Cast your bread upon the waters: a summons to be adventurous like those who braved the rigors of seagoing trade and achieved wealth (see Prov 11:24).
- Ecclesiastes 11:2 Share with seven or with eight: this may refer to sharing our resources with others or to avoiding putting all our eggs in one basket.
- Ecclesiastes 11:6 Clouds . . . tree . . . wind . . . seed: we must keep in mind that nothing is ever really certain to occur in life. Our task is to make an educated guess about future projects and act on them as best we can.
