11 Spread your bread on the water—
after a while you will find it.
² Apportion what you have into seven, or even eight parts,
    because you don’t know what disaster might befall the land.
³ If the clouds are full of rain,
    they will pour out on the earth;
if a tree falls toward the south or the north,
    wherever it falls, there it will lay.
⁴ Whoever keeps staring at the wind won’t sow;
    whoever daydreams^[a] won’t reap.
⁵ Just as you do not understand the way of the spirit
    in the^[b] womb of a pregnant mother,
so also you do not know
    what God is doing in everything he makes.
⁶ Sow your seed in the morning,
    and don’t stop working^[c] until evening,
since you don’t know which of your endeavors will do well,
    whether this one or that,
        or even if both will do equally well.