What benefit ¹  do people ²  get from all the effort which ³  they expend ⁴  on earth? ⁵ 

Who forms a god and casts an idol that will prove worthless? ¹ 

Therefore what advantage does the Jew have, or what is the value of circumcision?

Now godliness combined with contentment brings great profit.

All who form idols are nothing; the things in which they delight are worthless. Their witnesses cannot see; they recognize nothing, so they are put to shame.

My people will sow wheat, but will harvest weeds. ¹  They will work until they are exhausted, but will get nothing from it. They will be disappointed in their harvests ²  because the Lord will take them away in his fierce anger. ³ 

You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God. How have we been helped ¹  by keeping his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord who rules over all? ² 

This is what the Lord, your protector, ¹  says, the Holy One of Israel: ²  “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you how to succeed, who leads you in the way you should go.

Your priests ¹  did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord?’ ²  Those responsible for teaching my law ³  did not really know me. ⁴  Your rulers rebelled against me. Your prophets prophesied in the name of the god Baal. ⁵  They all worshiped idols that could not help them. ⁶ 

Moreover, the strength of their ¹  hands – what use was it to me? Men whose strength ²  had perished;

To each person the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the benefit of all.

Listen! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you at all!

He gives back the ill-gotten gain ¹  without assimilating it; ²  he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce. ³ 

Yes, you would gamble ¹  for the fatherless, and auction off ²  your friend.

For he says, ‘It does not profit a man when he makes his delight with God.’ ¹ 

who was formerly useless to you, but is now useful to you ¹  and me.

Yet when I reflected on everything I had accomplished ¹  and on all the effort that I had expended to accomplish it, ²  I concluded: ³  “All these ⁴  achievements and possessions ⁵  are ultimately ⁶  profitless ⁷  – like chasing the wind! There is nothing gained ⁸  from them ⁹  on earth.”

Persist ¹  in trusting ²  your amulets and your many incantations, which you have faithfully recited ³  since your youth! Maybe you will be successful ⁴  – maybe you will scare away disaster. ⁵ 

What good ¹  is an idol? Why would a craftsman make it? ²  What good is a metal image that gives misleading oracles? ³  Why would its creator place his trust in it ⁴  and make ⁵  such mute, worthless things?

But when her owners ¹  saw their hope of profit ²  was gone, they seized ³  Paul and Silas and dragged ⁴  them into the marketplace before the authorities.