Ecclesiastes 4 & 5

Then I saw that all toil and skillful work is the rivalry of one man for another. This also is vanity and a chase after wind.

A solitary man with no companion; with neither son nor brother. Yet there is no end to all his toil, and riches do not satisfy his greed. "For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good things?" This also is vanity and a worthless task.

Two are better than one: they get a good wage for their labor. If the one falls, the other will lift up his companion. Woe to the solitary man! For if he should fall, he has no one to lift him up.

So also, if two sleep together, they keep each other warm. How can one alone keep warm? Where a lone man may be overcome, two together can resist. A three-ply cord is not easily broken.

Better is a poor but wise youth than an old but foolish king who no longer knows caution; for from a prison house one comes forth to rule, since even in his royalty he was poor at birth.

Ecclesiastes 4:4, 8-14

Be not hasty in your utterance and let not your heart be quick to make a promise in God's presence. God is in heaven and you are on earth; therefore let your words be few.

For nightmares come with many cares, and a fool's utterance with many words. When you make a vow to God, delay not its fulfillment. For God has no pleasure in fools; fulfill what you have vowed.

You had better not make a vow than make it and not fulfill it. Let not your utterances make you guilty, and say not before his representative, "It was a mistake," lest God be angered by such words and destroy the works of your hands. Rather, fear God!

The covetous man is never satisfied with money, and the lover of wealth reaps no fruit from it; so this too is vanity. Where there are great riches, there are also many to devour them. Of what use are they to the owner except to feast his eyes upon?

Sleep is sweet to the laboring man, whether he eats little or much, but the rich man's abundance allows him no sleep.

Any man to whom God gives riches and property, and grants power to partake of them, so that he receives his lot and finds joy in the fruits of his toil, has a gift from God. For he will hardly dwell on the shortness of his life, because God lets him busy himself with the joy of his heart.

Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, 10-12, 19-20