I decided to indulge in wine, while still remaining committed to wisdom. I also tried to indulge in foolishness, just enough to determine whether it was good for human beings under heaven given the short time of their lives.

I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king's successor do? Just that which has been done long ago.

I realized that wisdom has an advantage over folly, just as light has an advantage over darkness.

For, just like the fool, there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man, since in the days to come both will be forgotten. How is it that the wise man dies just like the fool?

And yet I saw under the sun the place of judgment, there the unjust one; and the place of the just one, there the unjust one.

I said in my heart, The just one and the unjust one, God will judge: for a time for every inclination and for every work there.

For what happens to people also happens to animals a single event happens to them: just as someone dies, so does the other. In fact, they all breathe the same way, so that a human being has no superiority over an animal. All of this is pointless.

Just as dreams come when there are many cares, so the rash vow of a fool occurs when there are many words.

Just as there is futility in many dreams, so also in many words. Therefore, fear God!

Just as he came from his mother's womb naked, {he will depart} just as he came; he will take nothing with him for his toil.

And this also is a great evil, that just as he came, so shall he go: and what profit has he who has labored for the wind?

For wisdom provides protection, just as money provides protection. But the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves the life of its owner.

All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perishes in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongs his life in his wickedness.

Thou shalt not be greatly just; and thou shalt not be exceedingly wise: wherefore wilt thou be made desolate?

For there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not.

Lo, this only have I found, that God made man just and right, but they seek divers subtleties.

Just as no one can control the wind to restrain the wind, so also no one can control the day of his death. Just as no one is discharged in time of war, so wickedness will not deliver the wicked.

There is a vanity which is done upon the earth; that there are just men, unto whom it happens according to the work of the wicked; again, there are wicked men, to whom it happens according to the work of the righteous: I said that this also is vanity.

For all this I gave to my heart, and to examine all this, that the just and the wise and their works are in the hand of God: also love, also hatred, no man shall know of all before them.

All according to all: one event to the just one and to the unjust one; to the good one and to the clean one, and to the unclean one; to him sacrificing and to him not sacrificing: as the good one, so the sinning one; he swearing, as he who shall fear an oath.

For man does not know his time. Just as fish are caught in a cruel net and like birds who are seized in a snare, so also {humans} are ensnared at a cruel time when it falls suddenly upon them.

Just as you don’t know the path of the wind,
or how bones develop in the womb of a pregnant woman,
so you don’t know the work of God who makes everything.