Wisdom Is Meaningless

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

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!

I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”

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.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.

I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless

Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?

I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.

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.

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.

Wisdom

A good name is better than fine perfume, and the day of death better than the day of birth.

Wisdom, like an inheritance, is a good thing and benefits those who see the sun.

Wisdom is a shelter as money is a shelter, but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it.

Wisdom makes one wise person more powerful than ten rulers in a city.

All this I tested by wisdom and I said, “I am determined to be wise”— but this was beyond me.

So I turned my mind to understand, to investigate and to search out wisdom and the scheme of things and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the madness of folly.

Who is like the wise? Who knows the explanation of things? A person’s wisdom brightens their face and changes its hard appearance.

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night—

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.

Wisdom Better Than Folly

I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me:

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.

So I said, “Wisdom is better than strength.” But the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war, but one sinner destroys much good.

As dead flies give perfume a bad smell, so a little folly outweighs wisdom and honor.