The miserable estate of him to whom God hath given riches, and not the grace to use them.

There is an evil, which I saw under the sun, and it is much among men:

A man to whom God hath given riches and treasures and honor, and he wanteth nothing for his soul of all that he desireth: but [a]God giveth him not power to eat thereof, but a strange man shall eat it up: this is vanity, and this is an evil sickness.

If a man beget an hundred children and live many years, and the days of his years be multiplied: and his soul be not [b]satisfied with good things, and he be not [c]buried, I say that an untimely fruit is better than he.

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Footnotes

  1. Ecclesiastes 6:2 He showeth that it is the plague of God when the rich man hath not a liberal heart to use his riches.
  2. Ecclesiastes 6:3 If he can never have enough.
  3. Ecclesiastes 6:3 As we see oftentimes that the covetous man either falleth into crimes that deserve death, or is murdered or drowned or hangeth himself, or such like, and so lacketh the honor of burial, which is the last office of humanity.

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