Ecclesiastes 2:12-16
Expanded Bible
Maybe Wisdom Is the Answer
12 Then I ·began to think again about being wise,
and also about being foolish and doing crazy things [L turned my attention to observe wisdom and mad folly].
After all, what more can anyone who comes after the king do?
He can’t do more than what the king has already done [C If the king couldn’t find meaning in life, then no one could].
13 I saw that ·being wise is certainly better than being foolish [L there was more profit in wisdom than folly],
just as light is ·better [more profitable] than darkness.
14 Wise people ·see where they are going [L have eyes in their head],
but fools walk around in the dark.
Yet I know that
both wise and foolish ·people end the same way [L have the same fate; C death].
15 I ·thought to myself [L said in my heart],
“·What happens to a fool will happen to me [L The fate of the fool is my fate], too,
so ·what is the reward for being [L why have I become so] wise?”
I said to myself,
“·Being wise [L This] is also useless [1:2].”
16 No one will remember the wise or the fool for long.
·In the future, [L The days will come only too soon when] both will be forgotten.
How will the wise person die?
Like the fool?
Ecclesiastes 2:12-16
Amplified Bible
Wisdom Excels Folly
12 So I turned to consider [secular] wisdom, madness, and folly; for what will the man do who succeeds the king? Nothing except what has already been done. 13 Then I saw that [even secular] wisdom [that brings sorrow] is better than [the pleasures of] folly and self-indulgence as light excels darkness. 14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness; and yet I know that [in the end] one fate happens to them both.(A) 15 Then I said to myself, “As it happens to the fool, so death will also happen to me. What use is it then for me to be extremely wise?” Then I said in my heart, “This too is vanity (meaningless).” 16 For there is no [more] lasting remembrance of the wise man than of the fool, since in the days to come all will be long forgotten. And how does the wise man die? Even as the fool!
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