“There is a vanity which is done on the earth, that there are righteous men to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked. Again, there are wicked men to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous. I said that this also is vanity.”

Reading this verse in context

This page shows one verse on its own, which is rarely how it was written. Ecclesiastes 8 contains 17 verses, and the sentences either side usually decide what this one means. Read the whole chapter before you quote it.

Text: World English Bible, Protestant edition (engwebp), eBible.org — public domain.