Ecclesiastes 8:11

For the sons of men perpetrate evils without any fear, because judgment is not pronounced quickly against the evil.

Catholic Public Domain Version

In The King James Version

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

In Context

10I have seen the impious buried. These same, while they were still living, were in the holy place, and they were praised in the city as workers of justice. But this, too, is emptiness.

12But although a sinner may do evil of himself one hundred times, and by patience still endure, I realize that it will be well with those who fear God, who revere his face.

Read all of Ecclesiastes 8

Cross References

Exodus 8:15Then Pharaoh, seeing that relief had been provided, hardened his own heart, and he did not listen to them, just as the Lord had instructed.

Job 21:11Their little ones go out like a flock, and their children jump around playfully.

Psalms 10:4For they have destroyed the things that you have completed. But what has the just one done?

Psalms 50:21Then you will accept the sacrifice of justice, oblations, and holocausts. Then they will lay calves upon your altar.

Isaiah 5:18Woe to you who draw iniquity with cords of vanity, and who draw sin as if with the rope of a cart,

Isaiah 57:11For whose sake have you been anxiously afraid, so that you would lie and not be mindful of me, nor consider me in your heart? For I am silent, and I am like someone who does not see, and so you have forgotten me.

Matthew Henry on Ecclesiastes 8:10-14

The Evil of Oppressive Rulers. 9 All this have I seen, and applied my heart unto every work that is done under the sun: there is a time wherein one man ruleth over another to his own hurt. 10 And so I saw the wicked buried, who had come and gone from the place of the holy, and they were forgotten in the city where they had so done: this is also vanity. 11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil. 12 Though a sinner do… Read the whole commentary →

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Study Ecclesiastes 8:11