² “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
    says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
    Everything is meaningless.”^(C)

³ What do people gain from all their labors
    at which they toil under the sun?^(D)
4 Generations come and generations go,
    but the earth remains forever.^(E)
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
    and hurries back to where it rises.^(F)
6 The wind blows to the south
    and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
    ever returning on its course.
⁷ All streams flow into the sea,
    yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
    there they return again.^(G)
8 All things are wearisome,
    more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,^(H)
    nor the ear its fill of hearing.
⁹ What has been will be again,
    what has been done will be done again;^(I)
    there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there anything of which one can say,
    “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
    it was here before our time.
¹¹ No one remembers the former generations,^(J)
    and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
    by those who follow them.^(K)

³ You turn people back to dust,
    saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”^(E)
4 A thousand years in your sight
    are like a day that has just gone by,
    or like a watch in the night.^(F)
5 Yet you sweep people away^(G) in the sleep of death—
    they are like the new grass of the morning:
⁶ In the morning it springs up new,
    but by evening it is dry and withered.^(H)