Ecclesiastes 2:13-24

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.