All is in vain
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These are the words of the Teacher,(a) the son of David, king in Jerusalem:
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“Futility (b) of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
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What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun?
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Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
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The sun rises and the sun sets; it hurries back to where it rises.
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The wind blows southward, then turns northward; round and round it swirls, ever returning on its course.
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All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place from which the streams come, there again they flow.
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All things are wearisome, more than one can describe; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing.
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What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
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Is there a case where one can say, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us.
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There is no remembrance of those who came before, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow after.
With wisdom comes sorrow
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I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!
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I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
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What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
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I said to myself, “Behold, I have grown and increased in wisdom beyond all those before me who were over Jerusalem, and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.”
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So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.
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For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.
Footnotes