Death Comes to Good and Bad
The Teacher takes to heart that the righteous, the wise, and their deeds are in God's hands, yet people still cannot know what lies ahead by appearances alone. The same fate comes to the righteous and the wicked, the clean and the unclean, and that common end makes life under the sun grievous because human hearts fill themselves with evil and madness before joining the dead.
S1o I took all this to heart and concluded that the righteous and the wise, as well as their deeds, are in God’s hands. Man does not know what lies ahead, whether love or hate. 2It is the same for all: There is a common fate for the righteous and the wicked, for the good and the bad, for the clean and the unclean, for the one who sacrifices and the one who does not. As it is for the good, so it is for the sinner; as it is for the one who makes a vow, so it is for the one who refuses to take a vow. 3This is an evil in everything that is done under the sun: There is one fate for everyone. Furthermore, the hearts of men are full of evil and madness while they are alive, and afterward they join the dead.
Even so, there is hope for the living, because to be alive at least means knowing that death is coming, whereas the dead no longer know anything of what transpires under the sun. Their loves, hatreds, and envies have vanished, and they no longer share in earthly affairs, so living presence remains preferable to the silence of death.
4There is hope, however, for anyone who is among the living; for even a live dog is better than a dead lion. 5For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten. 6Their love, their hate, and their envy have already vanished, and they will never again have a share in all that is done under the sun.