1:1 The words of the Teacher,* son of David, king in Jerusalem: / *Or the leader of the assembly; also in verses 2 and 12
1:2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
1:3 What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?
1:4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
1:5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.
1:6 The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.
1:7 All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.
1:8 All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.
1:9 What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
1:10 Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.
1:11 No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.
1:12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
1:13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!
1:14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
1:15 What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.
1:16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”
1:17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
1:18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.