I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility.

I explored with my mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men to do under heaven the few years of their lives.

All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor.

Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.

So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.

Then I looked again at all the acts of oppression which were being done under the sun. And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and that they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors was power, but they had no one to comfort them.

There was a certain man without a dependent, having neither a son nor a brother, yet there was no end to all his labor. Indeed, his eyes were not satisfied with riches and he never asked, “And for whom am I laboring and depriving myself of pleasure?” This too is vanity and it is a grievous task.

For he has come out of prison to become king, even though he was born poor in his kingdom.

Do not let your speech cause you to sin and do not say in the presence of the messenger of God that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry on account of your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

When those riches were lost through a bad investment and he had fathered a son, then there was nothing to support him.

I tested all this with wisdom, and I said, “I will be wise,” but it was far from me.

There was a small city with few men in it and a great king came to it, surrounded it and constructed large siegeworks against it.

But there was found in it a poor wise man and he delivered the city by his wisdom. Yet no one remembered that poor man.

then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.