I explored with my mind how to let my body enjoy life with wine and how to grasp folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what is good for people to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

I applied my mind to seek and explore through wisdom all that is done under heaven. God has given people this miserable task to keep them occupied.

I said to myself, “Look, I have amassed wisdom far beyond all those who were over Jerusalem before me, and my mind has thoroughly grasped wisdom and knowledge.”

I applied my mind to know wisdom and knowledge, madness and folly; I learned that this too is a pursuit of the wind.

For all his days are filled with grief, and his occupation is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.

Surely, the practice of extortion turns a wise person into a fool,
and a bribe destroys the mind.

All this I have seen, applying my mind to all the work that is done under the sun, at a time when one man has authority over another to his harm.

When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the activity that is done on the earth (even though one’s eyes do not close in sleep day or night),