הֶ֫בֶל

There is a futility that is done on the earth: There are righteous men who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked men who get what the actions of the righteous deserve. I say that this too is futile.

Enjoy life with your beloved wife all the days of the fleeting life that God has given you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For this is your portion in life and in your labor under the sun.

So if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything to come is futile.

So banish sorrow from your heart, and cast off pain from your body, for youth and vigor are fleeting.

“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”

Egypt’s help is futile and empty; therefore I have called her Rahab Who Sits Still.

But I said, “I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength in futility and vanity; yet My vindication is with the LORD, and My reward is with My God.”

When you cry out, let your companies of idols deliver you! Yet the wind will carry off all of them, a breath will take them away. But he who seeks refuge in Me will inherit the land and possess My holy mountain.”

This is what the LORD says: “What fault did your fathers find in Me that they strayed so far from Me? They followed worthless idols, and became worthless themselves.

Listen to the cry of the daughter of my people from a land far away: “Is the LORD no longer in Zion? Is her King no longer there?” “Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images, with their worthless foreign idols?”

For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut down a tree from the forest; it is shaped with a chisel by the hands of a craftsman.

But they are altogether senseless and foolish, instructed by worthless idols made of wood!

They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

Can the worthless idols of the nations bring rain? Do the skies alone send showers? Is this not by You, O LORD our God? So we put our hope in You, for You have done all these things.

O LORD, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in the day of distress, the nations will come to You from the ends of the earth, and they will say, “Our fathers inherited nothing but lies, worthless idols of no benefit at all.

They are worthless, a work to be mocked. In the time of their punishment they will perish.

All the while our eyes were failing as we looked in vain for help. We watched from our towers for a nation that could not save us.

Those who cling to worthless idols forsake His loving devotion.

For idols speak deceit and diviners see illusions; they tell false dreams and offer empty comfort. Therefore the people wander like sheep, oppressed for lack of a shepherd.