Ecclésiaste 3.16
New International Version

Un temps pour tout

¹ There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

² a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

³ a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

⁴ a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

⁵ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

⁶ a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

⁷ a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

⁸ a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
⁹ What do workers gain from their toil?
¹⁰ I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.
¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
¹² I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.
¹³ That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil — this is the gift of God.
¹⁴ I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him.

¹⁵ Whatever is has already been,
and what will be has been before;
and God will call the past to account.

L’homme et la bête

¹⁶ And I saw something else under the sun:
In the place of judgment — wickedness was there,
in the place of justice — wickedness was there.
¹⁷ I said to myself,
“God will bring into judgment
both the righteous and the wicked,
for there will be a time for every activity,
a time to judge every deed.”
¹⁸ I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals.
¹⁹ Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless.
²⁰ All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.
²¹ Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
²² So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?