All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

A Time for Everything

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.

And I saw something else under the sun: In the place of judgment—wickedness was there, in the place of justice—wickedness was there.

I said to myself, “God will bring into judgment both the righteous and the wicked, for there will be a time for every activity, a time to judge every deed.”

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. For who can bring them to see what will happen after them?

There was a man all alone; he had neither son nor brother. There was no end to his toil, yet his eyes were not content with his wealth. “For whom am I toiling,” he asked, “and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?” This too is meaningless— a miserable business!

There was no end to all the people who were before them. But those who came later were not pleased with the successor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool.

Much dreaming and many words are meaningless. Therefore fear God.

or wealth lost through some misfortune, so that when they have children there is nothing left for them to inherit.

When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.

Indeed, there is no one on earth who is righteous, no one who does what is right and never sins.

For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a person may be weighed down by misery.

All this I saw, as I applied my mind to everything done under the sun. There is a time when a man lords it over others to his own hurt.

There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless.

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the realm of the dead, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.

There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siege works against it.

Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom. But nobody remembered that poor man.

There is an evil I have seen under the sun, the sort of error that arises from a ruler:

Woe to the land whose king was a servant and whose princes feast in the morning.