⁵ You have made my days^(A) a mere handbreadth;
    the span of my years is as nothing before you.
Everyone is but a breath,^(B)
    even those who seem secure.^[a]

⁴ They are like a breath;^(A)
    their days are like a fleeting shadow.^(B)

⁴⁷ Remember how fleeting is my life.^(A)
    For what futility you have created all humanity!

⁹ All our days pass away under your wrath;
    we finish our years with a moan.^(A)
10 Our days may come to seventy years,^(B)
    or eighty,^(C) if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,^(D)
    for they quickly pass, and we fly away.^(E)

⁹ Surely the lowborn^(A) are but a breath,^(B)
    the highborn are but a lie.
If weighed on a balance,^(C) they are nothing;
    together they are only a breath.

¹¹ Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
    and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;^(A)
    nothing was gained under the sun.^(B)

¹⁷ Before him all the nations^(A) are as nothing;^(B)
    they are regarded by him as worthless
    and less than nothing.^(C)

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