Ecclesiastes 1

¹Ecclesiastes 1:1. These are the words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem:²Ecclesiastes 1:2. “Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”³Ecclesiastes 1:3. What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun?⁴Ecclesiastes 1:4. Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.⁵Ecclesiastes 1:5. The sun rises and the sun sets; it hurries back to where it rises.⁶Ecclesiastes 1:6. The wind blows southward, then turns northward; round and round it swirls, ever returning on its course.⁷Ecclesiastes 1:7. All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place from which the streams come, there again they flow.⁸Ecclesiastes 1:8. All things are wearisome, more than one can describe; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing.⁹Ecclesiastes 1:9. What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.¹⁰Ecclesiastes 1:10. Is there a case where one can say, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us.¹¹Ecclesiastes 1:11. There is no remembrance of those who came before, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow after.

¹²Ecclesiastes 1:12. I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.¹³Ecclesiastes 1:13. And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a miserable task God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!¹⁴Ecclesiastes 1:14. I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.¹⁵Ecclesiastes 1:15. What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.¹⁶Ecclesiastes 1:16. I said to myself, “Behold, I have grown and increased in wisdom beyond all those before me who were over Jerusalem, and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.”¹⁷Ecclesiastes 1:17. So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.¹⁸Ecclesiastes 1:18. For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.