Ecclesiastes 2:1-25

¹Therefore I said in mine heart, I shall go, and I shall flow in delights, and I shall use goods; and I saw also that this was vanity.

²And laughing I areckoned error, and I said to joy, What art thou, deceived in vain?

³I thought in mine heart to withdraw my flesh from wine, that I should lead over my soul to wisdom, and that I would eschew folly, till I should see, what were profitable to the sons of men; in which deed the number of days of their life under the sun is needful.

⁴I magnified, either made great, my works, I builded houses to me, and I planted vines;

⁵I made yards or gardens and orchards, and I set those with trees of all kinds;

⁶and I made cisterns of waters, for to water the wood of the trees growing.

⁷I had in possession servants and handmaids; and I had much meine, and droves of great beasts, and great flocks of sheep, over all men that were before me in Jerusalem.

⁸I gathered together to me silver and gold, and the castles of kings and of provinces; I made to me singers and singeresses, and the delights of the sons of men, and cups and vessels in service, to pour out wines;

⁹and I passed in riches all men that were before me in Jerusalem. Also wisdom dwelled stably with me,

¹⁰and all things which mine eyes desired, I denied not to them; neither I refrained mine heart, that not it used all lust, and delighted itself in these things which I had made ready; and I deemed this my part, if I used my travail.

¹¹And when I had turned me to all the works which mine hands had made, and to the travails in which I had sweated in vain, I saw in all things vanity and torment of soul, and that nothing under the sun dwelleth.

¹²I passed forth to behold wisdom, and errors, and folly; I said, What is a man, that he may pursue or follow the king, his maker?

¹³And I saw, that wisdom went so much before folly, as much as light is diverse from darknesses.

¹⁴The eyes of a wise man be in his head, a fool goeth in darknesses; and I learned, that one perishing was of ever either.

¹⁵And I said in mine heart, If one death shall be both of the fool and of me, what profiteth it to me, that I gave more busyness to wisdom? And I spake with my soul, and perceived, that this also was vanity.

¹⁶For the mind of a wise man shall not be, in like manner as neither that of a fool, without end, and the times to coming or to come shall cover all things altogether with forgetting; a learned man dieth in like manner as an unlearned man.

¹⁷And therefore it annoyed me of my life, seeing that all things under the sun be evil, and that all things be vanity and torment of the spirit.

¹⁸Again I cursed all my busyness, by which I travailed most studiously under the sun; and I shall have an heir after me,

¹⁹whom I know not, whether he shall be wise either a fool; and he shall be lord in my travails, for which I sweated greatly, and was busy; and is there anything so vain?

²⁰Wherefore I ceased, and mine heart forsook for to travail further under the sun.

²¹For why when another man travaileth in wisdom, and teaching, and busyness, he leaveth things gotten to an idle man; and therefore this is vanity, and great evil.

²²For why what shall it profit to a man of all his travail, and torment of spirit, with which he was tormented under the sun?

²³All his days be full of sorrows and mischiefs, and by night he resteth not in soul; and whether this is not vanity?

²⁴Whether it is not better to eat and drink, and to show to his soul the goods of his travails? and this thing is of the hand of God.

²⁵Who shall devour so, and shall flow in delights, as I have?