Ecclesiastes 2:12-23 - The Living Must Abandon The Work Of Their Hands To Others At Death

¹² And I turned myself to behold wisdom and madness and folly. For what [can] the man [do] who comes after the king? [Even] that which has been done long ago. ¹³ Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as far as light excels darkness.

¹⁴ The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that one event happens to them all. ¹⁵ Then said I in my heart, As it happens to the fool, so it will happen even to me, and why then was I more wise? Then said I in my heart that this also is vanity. ¹⁶ 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! ¹⁷ So I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous to me. For all is vanity and a striving after wind.

¹⁸ And I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who shall be after me. ¹⁹ 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. ²⁰ Therefore I turned about to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor in which I had labored under the sun. ²¹ For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, and with knowledge, and with skillfulness, yet he shall leave it to a man who has not labored in it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²² For what has a man of all his labor, and of the striving of his heart in which he labors under the sun? ²³ For all his days are [but] sorrows, and his travail is grief, yea, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.