A song of ascents. ²  O Lord, for David’s sake remember all his strenuous effort, ³ 

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

Make your tent larger, stretch your tent curtains farther out! ¹  Spare no effort, lengthen your ropes, and pound your stakes deep. ² 

No one invokes ¹  your name, or makes an effort ²  to take hold of you. For you have rejected us ³  and handed us over to our own sins. ⁴ 

“This is what the sovereign Lord says: ‘The Philistines ¹  have exacted merciless revenge, ²  showing intense scorn ³  in their effort to destroy Judah ⁴  with unrelenting hostility. ⁵ 

Then Haggai responded, “‘The people of this nation are unclean in my sight,’ ¹  says the Lord. ‘And so is all their effort; everything they offer is also unclean. ² 

All along the way I, the Lord your God, ¹  have blessed your every effort. ²  I have ³  been attentive to ⁴  your travels through this great wasteland. These forty years I have ⁵  been with you; you have lacked for nothing.’”

I did not restrain myself from getting whatever I wanted; ¹  I did not deny myself anything that would bring me pleasure. ²  So all my accomplishments gave me joy; ³  this was my reward for all my effort. ⁴ 

So I loathed all the fruit of ¹  my effort, ²  for which I worked so hard ³  on earth, ⁴  because ⁵  I must leave it ⁶  behind ⁷  in the hands of my successor. ⁸ 

If an iron axhead ¹  is blunt and a workman ²  does not sharpen ³  its edge, ⁴  he must exert a great deal of effort; ⁵  so wisdom has the advantage of giving success.

As certainly as the Lord your God lives, my master has sent to every nation and kingdom in an effort to find you. When they say, ‘He’s not here,’ he makes them ¹  swear an oath that they could not find you.

Now, look, I have made every effort to supply what is needed to build the Lord’s temple. ¹  I have stored up 100,000 talents ²  of gold, 1,000,000 ³  talents of silver, and so much bronze and iron it cannot be weighed, as well as wood and stones. Feel free to add more!

So I have made every effort ¹  to provide what is needed for the temple of my God, including the gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, ²  as well as a large amount of onyx, settings of antimony and other stones, all kinds of precious stones, and alabaster.

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.”