Ecclesiastes 3:9
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.
What does the worker gain from his toil?
10 I have seen the burden that God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them.
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end.
Do read the surrounding verses too, because the context often says more than a single verse.
Compare
- BSB
- What does the worker gain from his toil?
- KJV
- What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?
- WEB
- What profit has he who works in that in which he labors?
- ASV
- What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboreth?
- DARBY
- What profit hath he that worketh from that wherein he laboureth?
- BLB
- What [is] the profit of the one making in that which he toils?
- ÅB
- Hva vinning har den som gjør noe, av det strev han har med det?
- OTB
- Hva har arbeiderne igjen for sitt strev?
- B1930
- Hvad vinning har den som gjør noget, av det strev han har med det?
Study notes (Tyndale)
Original text and word study
Cross references
Ecclesiastes 1:3
What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun?
Read in contextProverbs 14:23
There is profit in all labor, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Read in contextEcclesiastes 5:16
This too is a grievous evil: Exactly as a man is born, so he will depart. What does he gain as he toils for the wind?
Read in contextEcclesiastes 2:22–23
For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun?
Read in contextMatthew 16:26
What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Read in contextEcclesiastes 2:11
Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Read in context