Ecclesiastes/Qohelet 1

¹ The words of David's son, Qoheleth, king in Jerusalem:

² Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!

³ What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun?

⁴ One generation passes and another comes, but the world forever stays.

⁵ The sun rises and the sun goes down; then it presses on to the place where it rises.

⁶ Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north, the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds.

⁷ All rivers go to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they go, the rivers keep on going.

⁸ All speech is labored; there is nothing man can say. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing.

⁹ What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun.

¹⁰ Even the thing of which we say, "See, this is new!" has already existed in the ages that preceded us.

¹¹ There is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them.

¹² I, Qoheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem,

¹³ and I applied my mind to search and investigate in wisdom all things that are done under the sun. A thankless task God has appointed for men to be busied about.

¹⁴ I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind.

¹⁵ What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is missing cannot be supplied.

¹⁶ Though I said to myself, "Behold, I have become great and stored up wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my mind has broad experience of wisdom and knowledge";

¹⁷ yet when I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, I learned that this also is a chase after wind.

¹⁸ For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief.