I have seen all the works that are done under the sun, and, behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.

I communed with my own heart, saying, Lo, I have gotten for me great wisdom above all who were before me in Jerusalem. Yea, my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance forever, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. And how the wise man dies even as the fool!

And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.

For who can eat, or who can have enjoyment, without him?

I have seen the travail which God has given to the sons of men to be employed therewith.

For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts, even one thing befalls them; as the one dies, so dies the other. Yea, they all have one breath, and man has no preeminence above the beasts; for all is vanity.

There is a grievous evil which I have seen under the sun: Riches [were] kept by the owner of it to his hurt.

Behold, that which I have seen to be good and to be fitting is [for a man] to eat and to drink, and to enjoy good in all his labor in which he labors under the sun all the days of his life which God has given him, for this is his p

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, and it is heavy upon men:

All this I have seen in my days of vanity. There is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man who prolongs [his life] in his evil-doing.

For many times also thine own heart knows that thou thyself likewise have cursed others.

All this I have proved in wisdom. I said, I will be wise, but it was far from me.

Behold, I have found this, says the Preacher, [laying] one thing to another, to find out the account,

which my soul still seeks, but I have not found: among a thousand I have found one man, but among all those I have not found a woman.

Behold, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many contrivances.

All this I have seen, and applied my heart to every work that is done under the sun. [There is] a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.

For the living know that they shall die, but the dead know not anything, nor have they any more a reward, for the memory of them is forgotten.

As well their love, as their hatred and their envy, has perished long ago, nor have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.

I have also seen wisdom under the sun this way, and it seemed great to me:

There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as it were an error which proceeds from the ruler:

I have seen servants upon horses, and rulers walking like servants upon the earth.

Remember also thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh, when thou shall say, I have no pleasure in them,

The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened [by] the masters of assemblies. They have been given from one shepherd.