Ecclesiastes 1

⁸“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”

⁹Not only was the Teacher wise, but he also taught the people knowledge; he pondered, searched out, and arranged many proverbs.

¹²I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

²⁷“Behold,” says the Teacher, “I have discovered this by adding one thing to another to find an explanation.

⁴²Thus the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years.

⁴³And Solomon rested with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David. And his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.

⁵if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight;

¹The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me, because the Lord has anointed Me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners,

⁴Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope

¹⁰He who loves money is never satisfied by money, and he who loves wealth is never satisfied by income. This too is futile.

⁵You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah

⁶Surely every man goes about like a phantom; surely he bustles in vain; he heaps up riches not knowing who will haul them away.

⁸“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”

²⁶To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

⁹What does the worker gain from his toil?

¹⁶This too is a grievous affliction: Exactly as a man is born, so he will depart. What does he gain as he toils for the wind?

²²For what does a man get for all the toil and striving with which he labors under the sun?

³⁶What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?

³⁷Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?

¹¹Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

²⁷Do not work for food that perishes, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on Him God the Father has placed His seal of approval.”

⁵He set the earth on its foundations, never to be moved.

⁵Where are your fathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever?

¹²For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him under the sun?

³⁵Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away.

⁹⁰Your faithfulness continues through all generations; You established the earth, and it endures.

⁹¹Your ordinances stand to this day, for all things are servants to You.

⁴⁷Remember the briefness of my lifespan! For what futility You have created all men!

⁴⁸What man can live and never see death? Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah

¹For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God.

¹¹Sun and moon stood still in their places at the flash of Your flying arrows, at the brightness of Your shining spear.

⁴their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens He has pitched a tent for the sun.

⁵Like a bridegroom emerging from his chamber, like a champion rejoicing to run his course,

¹⁹He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows when to set.

²⁰You bring darkness, and it becomes night, when all the beasts of the forest prowl.

¹³So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.”

¹⁴There has been no day like it before or since, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man, because the Lord fought for Israel.

³⁶his offspring shall endure forever, and his throne before Me like the sun,

³⁷like the moon, established forever, a faithful witness in the sky.” Selah

⁸The wind blows where it wishes. You hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

⁵As you do not know the path of the wind, or how the bones are formed in a mother’s womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things.

⁹The tempest comes from its chamber, and the cold from the driving north winds.

²⁹He calmed the storm to a whisper, and the waves of the sea were hushed.

¹⁷You whose clothes get hot when the land lies hushed under the south wind,

²⁵For He spoke and raised a tempest that lifted the waves of the sea.

¹⁰when I fixed its boundaries and set in place its bars and doors,

¹¹and I declared: ‘You may come this far, but no farther; here your proud waves must stop’?

²⁰Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

²⁸Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

⁸There is a man all alone, without even a son or brother. And though there is no end to his labor, his eyes are still not content with his wealth: “For whom do I toil and bereave my soul of enjoyment?” This too is futile—a miserable task.

¹⁰He who loves money is never satisfied by money, and he who loves wealth is never satisfied by income. This too is futile.

¹¹When good things increase, so do those who consume them; what then is the profit to the owner, except to behold them with his eyes?

⁵My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods; with joyful lips my mouth will praise You.

¹Again I looked, and I considered all the oppression taking place under the sun. I saw the tears of the oppressed, and they had no comforter; the power lay in the hands of their oppressors, and there was no comforter.

²So I admired the dead, who had already died, above the living, who are still alive.

¹⁵What exists has already been, and what will be has already been, for God will call to account what has passed.

¹⁰Whatever exists was named long ago, and it is known what man is; but he cannot contend with one stronger than he.

¹Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.

¹²Then I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly; for what more can the king’s successor do than what has already been accomplished?

¹⁰Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is unwise of you to ask about this.

¹⁹Behold, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness and streams in the desert.

⁵¹You stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did.

³⁰And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’

³¹So you testify against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.

²⁶Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man:

²⁷People were eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.

¹²Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.

⁸Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these men oppose the truth. They are depraved in mind and disqualified from the faith.

¹⁶For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise, just as with the fool, seeing that both will be forgotten in the days to come. Alas, the wise man will die just like the fool!

⁶The enemy has come to eternal ruin, and You have uprooted their cities; the very memory of them has vanished.

⁵For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward, because the memory of them is forgotten.

⁹Behold, the former things have happened, and now I declare new things. Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

²²“Let them come and tell us what will happen. Tell the former things, so that we may reflect on them and know the outcome. Or announce to us what is coming.

²³Tell us the things that are to come, so that we may know that you are gods. Yes, do something good or evil, that we may look on together in dismay.

¹These are the words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem:

¹So King Solomon ruled over Israel,

²and these were his chief officials: Azariah son of Zadok was the priest;

¹⁰I have seen the burden that God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them.

¹⁹By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread, until you return to the ground—because out of it were you taken. For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”

¹⁵Be diligent in these matters and absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all.

¹⁶When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the task that one performs on the earth—though his eyes do not see sleep in the day or even in the night—

¹⁷I saw every work of God, and that a man is unable to comprehend the work that is done under the sun. Despite his efforts to search it out, he cannot find its meaning; even if the wise man claims to know, he is unable to comprehend.

¹⁷So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.

²⁵I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness.

¹¹Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

¹⁷So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. For everything is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

²⁶To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

⁹Better what the eye can see than the wandering of desire. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

¹⁷So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.

¹⁸For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.

⁵You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah

⁶Surely every man goes about like a phantom; surely he bustles in vain; he heaps up riches not knowing who will haul them away.

¹²For wisdom, like money, is a shelter, and the advantage of knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of its owner.

¹³Consider the work of God: Who can straighten what He has bent?

²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

¹⁴I know that everything God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it or taken from it. God does it so that they should fear Him.

⁴Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground will become smooth, and the rugged land a plain.

³⁷Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has ordained it?

²⁹But when He remains silent, who can condemn Him? When He hides His face, who can see Him? Yet He watches over both man and nation,

⁹So I became great and surpassed all in Jerusalem who had preceded me; and my wisdom remained with me.

³⁰Solomon’s wisdom was greater than that of all the men of the East, greater than all the wisdom of Egypt.

⁷But I did not believe these things until I came and saw with my own eyes. Indeed, not even half was told to me. Your wisdom and prosperity have far exceeded the report I heard.

¹²behold, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been another like you, nor will there ever be.

¹³Moreover, I will give you what you did not request—both riches and honor—so that during all your days no man in any kingdom will be your equal.

¹⁴But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained their senses to distinguish good from evil.

¹²And Hiram added: “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, who made the heavens and the earth! He has given King David a wise son with insight and understanding, who will build a temple for the Lord and a royal palace for himself.

³I sought to cheer my body with wine and to embrace folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom—until I could see what was worthwhile for men to do under heaven during the few days of their lives.

²¹but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

²³All this I tested by wisdom, saying, “I resolve to be wise.” But it was beyond me.

²⁴What exists is out of reach and very deep. Who can fathom it?

¹⁰Anything my eyes desired, I did not deny myself. I refused my heart no pleasure. For my heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor.

¹¹Yet when I considered all the works that my hands had accomplished and what I had toiled to achieve, I found everything to be futile, a pursuit of the wind; there was nothing to be gained under the sun.

¹³And I set my mind to seek and explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a miserable task God has laid upon the sons of men to occupy them!

¹⁴I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.

²⁸And He said to man, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to turn away from evil is understanding.’”

¹²And by these, my son, be further warned: There is no end to the making of many books, and much study wearies the body.

¹³When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.

¹⁸Let no one deceive himself. If any of you thinks he is wise in this age, he should become a fool, so that he may become wise.

¹⁹For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: “He catches the wise in their craftiness.”

¹⁶Do not be overly righteous, and do not make yourself too wise. Why should you destroy yourself?

¹³Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good conduct, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.

¹⁴But if you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast in it or deny the truth.

²³Indeed, all his days are filled with grief, and his task is sorrowful; even at night, his mind does not rest. This too is futile.