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Ecclesiastes 8:7-9
New International Reader's Version
Ecclesiastes 8:7-9
New International Reader's Version
7 No one knows what lies ahead.
So who can tell someone else what’s going to happen?
8 No one can stop the wind from blowing.
And no one has the power to decide when they will die.
No one is let out of the army in times of war.
And evil won’t let go of those who practice it.
9 I understood all these things. I used my mind to study everything that’s done on earth. A man sometimes makes life hard for others. But he ends up hurting himself.
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Ecclesiastes 8:7-9
New International Version
Ecclesiastes 8:7-9
New International Version
7 Since no one knows the future,
who can tell someone else what is to come?
8 As no one has power over the wind to contain it,
so[a] no one has power over the time of their death.
As no one is discharged in time of war,
so wickedness will not release those who practice it.
9 All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own[b] hurt.
Footnotes
- Ecclesiastes 8:8 Or over the human spirit to retain it, / and so
- Ecclesiastes 8:9 Or to their
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New International Version (NIV) 
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