22 It is all the same; that is why I say,
    ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’(A)

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All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad,[a] the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good,
    so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
    so with those who are afraid to take them.(A)

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all.(B) The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live,(C) and afterward they join the dead.(D)

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Footnotes

  1. Ecclesiastes 9:2 Septuagint (Aquila), Vulgate and Syriac; Hebrew does not have and the bad.

The realm of the dead(A) below is all astir
    to meet you at your coming;
it rouses the spirits of the departed(B) to greet you—
    all those who were leaders(C) in the world;
it makes them rise from their thrones—
    all those who were kings over the nations.(D)
10 They will all respond,
    they will say to you,
“You also have become weak, as we are;
    you have become like us.”(E)

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