Ecclesiastes 2:12-16

New International Reader's Version

Wisdom and Foolish Pleasure Are Meaningless

¹²I decided to think about wisdom.
    I also thought about foolish pleasure.
What more can a new king do?
    Can he do anything more than others have already done?
¹³I saw that wisdom is better than foolishness,
    just as light is better than darkness.
¹⁴The eyes of a wise person see things clearly.
    A person who is foolish lives in darkness.
But I finally realized that death catches up
    with both of them.

¹⁵Then I said to myself,

“What happens to a foolish person will catch up with me too.
    So what do I gain by being wise?”
I said to myself,
    “That doesn’t have any meaning either.”
¹⁶Like a foolish person, a wise person won’t be remembered very long.
    The days have already come when both of them have been forgotten.
Like a person who is foolish,
    a wise person must die too!