1:1
Composition of Qoheleth son of David, king in Jerusalem.
1:2
Sheer futility, Qoheleth says. Sheer futility: everything is futile!
1:3
What profit can we show for all our toil, toiling under the sun?
1:4
A generation goes, a generation comes, yet the earth stands firm for ever.
1:5
The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises.
1:6
Southward goes the wind, then turns to the north; it turns and turns again; then back to its circling goes the wind.
1:7
Into the sea go all the rivers, and yet the sea is never filled, and still to their goal the rivers go.
1:8
All things are wearisome. No one can say that eyes have not had enough of seeing, ears their fill of hearing.
1:9
What was, will be again, what has been done, will be done again, and there is nothing new under the sun!
1:10
Take anything which people acclaim as being new: it existed in the centuries preceding us.
1:11
No memory remains of the past, and so it will be for the centuries to come -- they will not be remembered by their successors.
1:12
I, Qoheleth, have reigned over Israel in Jerusalem.
1:13
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!
1:14
I have seen everything that is done under the sun: how futile it all is, mere chasing after the wind!
1:15
What is twisted cannot be straightened, what is not there cannot be counted.
1:16
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.
1:17
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.
1:18
Much wisdom, much grief; the more knowledge, the more sorrow.
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