---
title: "Ecclesiastes 8 – Catholic Bible (CPDV) & Latin Vulgate"
url: https://blessbible.app/bible/ecclesiastes/8/
description: "True wisdom is to observe God's commandments. The ways of God are… Ecclesiastes 8 in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin Vulgate."
---

# Ecclesiastes 8

Ecclesiastes 8 is chapter 8 of 12 in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Here are all 17 verses in the Catholic Public Domain Version, with the Latin of the Clementine Vulgate beside them.

> True wisdom is to observe God's commandments. The ways of God are unsearchable.
>
> — Bp. Richard Challoner, chapter summary

## Ecclesiastes 8 (Catholic Public Domain Version)

1. The wisdom of a man shines in his countenance, and even the expression of a most powerful man will change.
2. I heed the mouth of the king, and the commandment of an oath to God.
3. You should not hastily withdraw from his presence, nor should you remain in an evil work. For all that pleases him, he will do.
4. And his word is filled with authority. Neither is anyone able to say to him: “Why are you acting this way?”
5. Whoever keeps the commandment will not experience evil. The heart of a wise man understands the time to respond.
6. For every matter, there is a time and an opportunity, as well as many difficulties, for man.
7. For he is ignorant of the past, and he is able to know nothing of the future by means of a messenger.
8. It is not in the power of a man to prohibit the spirit, nor does he have authority over the day of death, nor is he permitted to rest when war breaks out, and neither will impiety save the impious.
9. I have considered all these things, and I have applied my heart to all the works which are being done under the sun. Sometimes one man rules over another to his own harm.
10. I have seen the impious buried. These same, while they were still living, were in the holy place, and they were praised in the city as workers of justice. But this, too, is emptiness.
11. For the sons of men perpetrate evils without any fear, because judgment is not pronounced quickly against the evil.
12. But although a sinner may do evil of himself one hundred times, and by patience still endure, I realize that it will be well with those who fear God, who revere his face.
13. So, may it not go well with the impious, and may his days not be prolonged. And let those who do not fear the face of the Lord pass away like a shadow.
14. There is also another vanity, which is done upon the earth. There are the just, to whom evils happen, as though they had done the works of the impious. And there are the impious, who are very secure, as though they possess the deeds of the just. But this, too, I judge to be a very great vanity.
15. And so, I praised rejoicing, because there was no good for a man under the sun, except to eat and drink, and to be cheerful, and because he may take nothing with him from his labor in the days of his life, which God has given to him under the sun.
16. And I applied my heart, so that I might know wisdom, and so that I might understand a disturbance that turns upon the earth: it is a man, who takes no sleep with his eyes, day and night.
17. And I understood that man is able to find no explanation for all those works of God which are done under the sun. And so, the more that he labors to seek, so much the less does he find. Yes, even if a wise man were to claim that he knows, he would not be able to discover it.

## Ecclesiastes 8 in Latin (Clementine Vulgate, 1592)

1. Sapientia hominis lucet in vultu ejus, et potentissimus faciem illius commutabit.
2. Ego os regis observo, et præcepta juramenti Dei.
3. Ne festines recedere a facie ejus, neque permaneas in opere malo: quia omne quod voluerit faciet.
4. Et sermo illius potestate plenus est, nec dicere ei quisquam potest: Quare ita facis?
5. Qui custodit præceptum non experietur quidquam mali. Tempus et responsionem cor sapientis intelligit.
6. Omni negotio tempus est, et opportunitas: et multa hominis afflictio,
7. quia ignorat præterita, et futura nullo scire potest nuntio.
8. Non est in hominis potestate prohibere spiritum, nec habet potestatem in die mortis: nec sinitur quiescere ingruente bello, neque salvabit impietas impium.
9. Omnia hæc consideravi, et dedi cor meum in cunctis operibus quæ fiunt sub sole. Interdum dominatur homo homini in malum suum.
10. Vidi impios sepultos, qui etiam cum adhuc viverent in loco sancto erant, et laudabantur in civitate quasi justorum operum. Sed et hoc vanitas est.
11. Etenim quia non profertur cito contra malos sententia, absque timore ullo filii hominum perpetrant mala.
12. Attamen peccator ex eo quod centies facit malum, et per patientiam sustentatur; ego cognovi quod erit bonum timentibus Deum, qui verentur faciem ejus.
13. Non sit bonum impio, nec prolongentur dies ejus, sed quasi umbra transeant qui non timent faciem Domini.
14. Est et alia vanitas quæ fit super terram: sunt justi quibus mala proveniunt quasi opera egerint impiorum: et sunt impii qui ita securi sunt quasi justorum facta habeant. Sed et hoc vanissimum judico.
15. Laudavi igitur lætitiam; quod non esset homini bonum sub sole, nisi quod comederet, et biberet, atque gauderet, et hoc solum secum auferret de labore suo, in diebus vitæ suæ quos dedit ei Deus sub sole.
16. Et apposui cor meum ut scirem sapientiam, et intelligerem distentionem quæ versatur in terra. Est homo qui diebus et noctibus somnum non capit oculis.
17. Et intellexi quod omnium operum Dei nullam possit homo invenire rationem eorum quæ fiunt sub sole; et quanto plus laboraverit ad quærendum, tanto minus inveniat: etiam si dixerit sapiens se nosse, non poterit reperire.

## Bishop Challoner's notes

Bp. Richard Challoner, notes on the Douay-Rheims (1750); they comment on its older wording.
- Verse 15: “No good for a man” … Some commentators think the wise man here speaks in the person of the libertine: representing the objections of these men against divine providence, and the inferences they draw from thence, which he takes care afterwards to refute. But it may also be said, that his meaning is to commend the moderate use of the goods of this world, preferably to the cares and solicitudes of worldlings, their attachment to vanity and curiosity, and presumptuously diving into the unsearchable ways of divine providence.

Source: Catholic Public Domain Version (Ronald L. Conte Jr., 2009), public domain; Latin: Clementine Vulgate (1592).