¹³ I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens.^(A) What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!^{(B) 14} I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.^(C)

¹⁶ I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me;^(E) I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” ¹⁷ Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom,^(F) and also of madness and folly,^(G) but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

Oppression, Toil, Friendlessness

4 Again I looked and saw all the oppression^(A) that was taking place under the sun:

Do Not Worry^(A)

²⁵ “Therefore I tell you, do not worry^(B) about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? ²⁶ Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.^(C) Are you not much more valuable than they?^{(D) 27} Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life^[a]?^(E)

²⁸ “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹ Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor^(F) was dressed like one of these. ³⁰ If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?^(G)