First Reading: Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

¹ For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
² a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
³ a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
⁴ a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
⁵ a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
⁶ a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
⁷ a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
⁸ a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
⁹ What gain has the worker from his toil?
¹⁰ I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with.
¹¹ He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.