{"meta":{"source":"Prime Bible","sourceUrl":"https://primebible.com","license":"Public domain (translation text); see citation policy at /citation-policy","organization":"501(c)(3) nonprofit — EIN 41-2531951","canonicalUrl":"https://primebible.com/akjv/ecclesiastes/8","llmTxt":"https://primebible.com/llms.txt","generatedAt":"2026-05-29T22:39:14.650Z"},"reference":{"translation":"AKJV","book":"Ecclesiastes","bookSlug":"ecclesiastes","chapter":8,"testament":"OLD"},"navigation":{"previousChapter":7,"nextChapter":9,"totalChapters":12,"totalVerses":17},"verses":[{"verseNumber":1,"text":"Who is as the wise man? and who knows the interpretation of a thing?  a man's wisdom makes his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed."},{"verseNumber":2,"text":"I counsel you to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God."},{"verseNumber":3,"text":"Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not in an evil thing; for he does whatever pleases him."},{"verseNumber":4,"text":"Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say to him, What do you?"},{"verseNumber":5,"text":"Whoever keeps the commandment shall feel no evil thing: and a wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment."},{"verseNumber":6,"text":"Because to every purpose there is time and judgment, therefore the misery of man is great on him."},{"verseNumber":7,"text":"For he knows not that which shall be: for who can tell him when it shall be?"},{"verseNumber":8,"text":"There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it."},{"verseNumber":9,"text":"All this have I seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man rules over another to his own hurt."},{"verseNumber":10,"text":"And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity."},{"verseNumber":11,"text":"Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil."},{"verseNumber":12,"text":"Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before him:"},{"verseNumber":13,"text":"But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he fears not before God."},{"verseNumber":14,"text":"There is a vanity which is done on the earth; that there be just men, to whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there be wicked men, to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity."},{"verseNumber":15,"text":"Then I commended mirth, because a man has no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God gives him under the sun."},{"verseNumber":16,"text":"When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth: (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes:)"},{"verseNumber":17,"text":"Then I beheld all the work of God, that a man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun: because though a man labor to seek it out, yet he shall not find it; yes farther; though a wise man think to know it, yet shall he not be able to find it."}],"citation":{"inline":"Ecclesiastes 8 (AKJV)","markdown":"[Ecclesiastes 8](https://primebible.com/akjv/ecclesiastes/8)","sbl":"Prime Bible. *The Bible.* AKJV. https://primebible.com/akjv/ecclesiastes/8 (accessed 2026-05-29)."}}