Ecclesiastes 3:6

A time to get, and a time to lose The getting or the losing refer primarily, we can scarcely doubt, to what we call property. There are times when it is better and wiser to risk the loss of all we have rather than to set our minds on acquiring more. Something like this lesson we have in our Lord's paradox "whosoever will (wills to) save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it" (Matthew 16:25). In earthly, as in heavenly, things it is the note of a wise man that he knows when to be content to lose. So the Satirist condemns the folly of those who are content,

"Propter vitam vivendi perdere causas."

"And for mere life to lose life's noblest ends."

Juven. Sat.viii. 84.

a time to keep, and a time to cast away The second couplet though closely allied with the foregoing is not identical with it. What is brought before us here is "keeping" as distinct from "getting," and the voluntarily casting away (2 Kings 7:15) what we know we have, as distinct from the loss of a profit more or less contingent. And here too, as life passes on, it presents occasions when now this, now that, is the choice of wisdom. So the sailor, in danger of shipwreck, casts out his cargo, his tackling, the "furniture" of his ship (Acts 27:18-19; Acts 27:38).