Remember Your Creator in Your Youth

Ecclesiastes 12

¹ Remember _a now your Creator in the days of your youth,
Before the ₁ difficult days come,
And the years draw near _b when you say,
"I have no pleasure in them": ² While the sun and the light,
The moon and the stars,
Are not darkened,
And the clouds do not return after the rain; ³ In the day when the keepers of the house tremble,
And the strong men bow down;
When the grinders cease because they are few,
And those that look through the windows grow dim; ⁴ When the doors are shut in the streets,
And the sound of grinding is low;
When one rises up at the sound of a bird,
And all _c the daughters of music are brought low. ⁵ Also they are afraid of height,
And of terrors in the way;
When the almond tree blossoms,
The grasshopper is a burden,
And desire fails.
For man goes to _d his eternal home,
And _e the mourners go about the streets. ⁶ Remember your Creator before the silver cord is ₂ loosed,
Or the golden bowl is broken,
Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain,
Or the wheel broken at the well. ⁷ _f Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
_g And the spirit will return to God _h who gave it. ⁸ "Vanity _i of vanities," says the Preacher,
"All is vanity."

1. Cross References
   2 Chronicles 34:3
   For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David; and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the wooden images, the carved images, and the molded images.
   Proverbs 22:6
   Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.
   Lamentations 3:27
   It is good for a man to bear The yoke in his youth.
   
2. Cross References
   2 Samuel 19:35
   I am today eighty years old. Can I discern between the good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear any longer the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be a further burden to my lord the king?
   
3. Cross References
   2 Samuel 19:35
   I am today eighty years old. Can I discern between the good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear any longer the voice of singing men and singing women? Why then should your servant be a further burden to my lord the king?
   
4. Cross References
   Job 17:13
   If I wait for the grave as my house, If I make my bed in the darkness.
   
5. Cross References
   Genesis 50:10
   Then they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and they mourned there with a great and very solemn lamentation. He observed seven days of mourning for his father.
   Jeremiah 9:17
   Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider and call for the mourning women, That they may come; And send for skillful wailing women, That they may come.
   
6. Cross References
   Genesis 3:19
   In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread Till you return to the ground, For out of it you were taken; For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.
   Job 34:15
   All flesh would perish together, And man would return to dust.
   Psalms 90:3
   You turn man to destruction, And say, "Return, O children of men.
   
7. Cross References
   Ecclesiastes 3:21
   Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, which goes down to the earth?
   
8. Cross References
   Numbers 16:22
   Then they fell on their faces, and said, "O God, the God of the spirits of all flesh, shall one man sin, and You be angry with all the congregation?
   Numbers 27:16
   Let the LORD, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation.
   Job 34:14
   If He should set His heart on it, If He should gather to Himself His Spirit and His breath.
   Isaiah 57:16
   For I will not contend forever, Nor will I always be angry; For the spirit would fail before Me, And the souls which I have made.
   Zechariah 12:1
   The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel. Thus says the LORD, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him:
   
9. Cross References
   Psalms 62:9
   Surely men of low degree are a vapor, Men of high degree are a lie; If they are weighed on the scales, They are altogether lighter than vapor.