Ecclesiastes3:8

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Translation

a time to love

and a time to hate,

a time of war

and a time of peace.

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Paraphrase

There will be some people with whom we will freely be able to express love and receive their love toward us, but that will not be possible with everyone, there will be people we struggle to get along with and a few people we just can’t stand to be around. Don’t expect all your relationships to be wonderful.

There will be times when a head-to-head conflict is the only way to deal with the situation, but don’t use that tactic all the time, for there will be times when you will need to do everything necessary to restore relationships and make those relationships healthy once again.

Footnotes

1

The Hebrew word for peace, shalom, means much more than an absence of violence; it means a state of “wholeness, completeness, health, prosperity, or wellbeing of all kinds, spiritual, relational and physical.”