Ecclesiastes 2:12-16

New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised

Wisdom and Joy Given to One Who Pleases God

¹² So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what can the one do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done. ¹³ Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness.

Yet I perceived that the same fate befalls all of them. ¹⁵ Then I said to myself, ‘What happens to the fool will happen to me also; why then have I been so very wise?’ And I said to myself that this also is vanity. ¹⁶ For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise or of fools, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How can the wise die just like fools?