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Everything Is Meaningless
The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
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“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
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What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
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All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
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All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
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What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
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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.
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Wisdom Is Meaningless
I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
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I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!
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I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
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What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.
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Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
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Pleasures Are Meaningless
I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless.
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“Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?”
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I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them.
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I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
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I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil.
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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; nothing was gained under the sun.
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I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
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Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.”
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Toil Is Meaningless
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
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I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.
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And who knows whether that person will be wise or foolish? Yet they will have control over all the fruit of my toil into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless.
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So my heart began to despair over all my toilsome labor under the sun.
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For a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge and skill, and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. This too is meaningless and a great misfortune.
