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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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The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
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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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No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
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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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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 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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For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!
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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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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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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.
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All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
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A person can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in their own toil. This too, I see, is from the hand of God,
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To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
