Ecclesiastes 3:1
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
Context and meaning
The poem that begins here is one of the best-known texts in world literature: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and to pluck up, to weep and to laugh, to keep silent and to speak.
The list has fourteen pairs of opposites. The choice is not random: it covers a whole life, and neither pole is presented as wrong. There is a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to embrace and a time to refrain. Wisdom, in this book, lies in recognizing which time it is now.
The setting of Ecclesiastes is perplexity — the author observes that much escapes human control. A few verses later he will say that God "has made everything beautiful in its time" and has set eternity in the human heart, "yet so that man can't find out the work that God has done".
It is a text much read at funerals, retirements, changes of season and weddings — at any moment when one stage ends and another begins.
This verse appears in
Scripture text: World English Bible (WEB), public domain. Prayers, introductions and reflections: original text by this site, not affiliated with any denomination. Devotional content; it does not replace medical, psychological or legal advice.
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (WEB), public domain. "World English Bible" is a trademark of eBible.org. ebible.org/web/