About this passageKohelet is read in the synagogue on the intermediate Sabbath of Sukkot, the autumn festival of temporary shelters. The speaker has already reported trying wisdom, pleasure, work and wealth and finding each of them insubstantial — hevel, a word for vapour or breath. This passage is a list rather than an instruction: fourteen pairs, each holding a thing and its opposite, with no ranking between them and no advice about which to choose.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
In plainer words
Everything gets its turn. Being born and dying. Planting and pulling up. Killing and healing. Tearing down and building. Crying and laughing. Mourning and dancing. Scattering stones and gathering them. Holding someone and letting go. Searching and giving up the search. Keeping and throwing out. Ripping and mending. Saying nothing and saying it. Loving and hating. War and peace. The list does not tell you which one you are in. It says only that there is a season for it, and that a season is not the whole year.
A restatement in modern English, written for this collection. The passage above is the text; this is one way of putting it.