Ecclesiastes - Chapter 1

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¹ Composition of Qoheleth son of David, king in Jerusalem.

² Sheer futility, Qoheleth says. Sheer futility: everything is futile!

³ What profit can we show for all our toil, toiling under the sun?

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⁴ A generation goes, a generation comes, yet the earth stands firm for ever.

⁵ The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises.

⁶ Southward goes the wind, then turns to the north; it turns and turns again; then back to its circling goes the wind.

⁷ Into the sea go all the rivers, and yet the sea is never filled, and still to their goal the rivers go.

⁸ All things are wearisome. No one can say that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their fill of hearing.

⁹ What was, will be again, what has been done, will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun!

¹⁰ Take anything which people acclaim as being new: it existed in the centuries preceding us.

¹¹ No memory remains of the past, and so it will be for the centuries to come -- they will not be remembered by their successors.

¹² I, Qoheleth, have reigned over Israel in Jerusalem.

¹³ Wisely I have applied myself to investigation and exploration of everything that happens under heaven. What a wearisome task God has given humanity to keep us busy!

¹⁴ I have seen everything that is done under the sun: how futile it all is, mere chasing after the wind!

¹⁵ What is twisted cannot be straightened, what is not there cannot be counted.

¹⁶ I thought to myself: I have acquired a greater stock of wisdom than anyone before me in Jerusalem. I myself have mastered every kind of wisdom and science.

¹⁷ I have applied myself to understanding philosophy and science, stupidity and folly, and I now realise that all this too is chasing after the wind.

¹⁸ Much wisdom, much grief; the more knowledge, the more sorrow.