You rich people, listen to me. Cry and weep, because you will soon be suffering.Your riches have rotted. Moths have eaten your clothes.Your gold and silver have lost their brightness. Their dullness will be a witness against you. Your wanting more and more will eat your body like fire. You have stored up riches in these last days.You have even failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields. Their pay is crying out against you. The cries of those who gathered the harvest have reached the ears of the Lord. He rules over all.You have lived an easy life on earth. You have given yourselves everything you wanted. You have made yourselves fat like cattle that will soon be butchered.You have judged and murdered people who aren’t guilty. And they weren’t even opposing you.
I’ll say to myself,“ You have plenty of grain stored away for many years. Take life easy. Eat, drink and have a good time.” ’“ But God said to him,‘ You foolish man! Tonight I will take your life away from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’“ That is how it will be for whoever stores things away for themselves but is not rich in the sight of God.”
You turn human beings back to dust. You say to them,“ Return to dust.”To you a thousand years are like a day that has just gone by. They are like a few hours of the night.
Here’s what is so bad about everything that happens on this earth. Death catches up with all of us. Also, the hearts of people are full of evil. They live in foolish pleasure. After that, they join those who have already died.
We know that all that God created has been groaning. It is in pain as if it were giving birth to a child. The created world continues to groan even now.