¹⁶ When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to see the business that is done on earth, how one’s eyes see sleep neither day nor night,

²³ For all their days are full of pain, and their work is a vexation; even at night their minds do not rest. This also is vanity.^(A)

¹³ I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with.^(A)

⁹ All this I observed, applying my mind to all that is done under the sun, while one person exercises authority over another to the other’s hurt.^(A)

⁷ Indeed, they do not know what is to be, for who can tell them how it will be?^(A)

²⁵ I turned my mind to know and to search out and to seek wisdom and the sum of things and to know that wickedness is folly and that foolishness is madness.^(A)

¹² Sweet is the sleep of laborers, whether they eat little or much, but the abundance of the rich will not let them sleep.^(A)

⁸ the case of solitary individuals, without sons or brothers; yet there is no end to all their toil, and their eyes are never satisfied with riches. “For whom am I toiling,” they ask, “and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.^(A)