Everything under heaven is given its own hour; Nothing arrives before the season made for it. We are born, and we are gathered in again; What we set into the ground, we later pull away. Wounds are opened, and wounds are closed. Walls come down so better walls can rise. Grief takes its hour; laughter takes another. Mourning ends, and the feet begin to move. Stones are scattered, then gathered in; Arms hold close, then learn to let go. We search for what was lost and lose what we were searching; We keep a thing, then find we must release it. Cloth is torn, and cloth is mended. Silence has its use, and so does speech. There is an hour to love, an hour to refuse; An hour for battle, and an hour to set it down. God makes each thing lovely in its hour And sets the sense of forever in us. Still the whole design stays past our reading, From its first line to its last. So take the gladness where it comes: bread, work, company; These arrive as gifts and never as wages. What His hand establishes endures; No one adds to it, and no one takes it away. Judgment waits where wickedness has flourished; Both the righteous and the wrong will face their time. Humans and the animals return to dust together; Who can see where every spirit climbs? Receive the work appointed to your hands; This is the portion given for your life.