| 1. | The words of David's son, Qoheleth, king in Jerusalem: |
| 2. | Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth, vanity of vanities! All things are vanity! |
| 3. | What profit has man from all the labor which he toils at under the sun? |
| 4. | One generation passes and another comes, but the world forever stays. |
| 5. | The sun rises and the sun goes down; then it presses on to the place where it rises. |
| 6. | Blowing now toward the south, then toward the north, the wind turns again and again, resuming its rounds. |
| 7. | All rivers go to the sea, yet never does the sea become full. To the place where they go, the rivers keep on going. |
| 8. | All speech is labored; there is nothing man can say. The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor is the ear filled with hearing. |
| 9. | What has been, that will be; what has been done, that will be done. Nothing is new under the sun. |
| 10. | Even the thing of which we say, "See, this is new!" has already existed in the ages that preceded us. |
| 11. | There is no remembrance of the men of old; nor of those to come will there be any remembrance among those who come after them. |
| 12. | I, Qoheleth, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, |
| 13. | and I applied my mind to search and investigate in wisdom all things that are done under the sun. A thankless task God has appointed for men to be busied about. |
| 14. | I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a chase after wind. |
| 15. | What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is missing cannot be supplied. |
| 16. | Though I said to myself, "Behold, I have become great and stored up wisdom beyond all who were before me in Jerusalem, and my mind has broad experience of wisdom and knowledge"; |
| 17. | yet when I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly, I learned that this also is a chase after wind. |
| 18. | For in much wisdom there is much sorrow, and he who stores up knowledge stores up grief. |
