Ecclesiastes 8:9-11

The Voice

⁹ I have witnessed all of this as I have focused my attention on all that is done under the sun: whenever one person oppresses another to lift himself up, it only hurts him in the end.

¹⁰ I have witnessed the wicked buried with honor because during their lifetimes they would go in and out of the temple, and soon their crimes were forgotten in the very city where they committed them. This, too, is fleeting.^{[a] 11} When the penalty for a crime is not carried out quickly, then people start scheming to commit their own crimes.