11. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had doneAnd on the labor in which I had toiled;And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.There was no profit under the sun.
12. Then I turned myself to consider wisdom and madness and folly;For what can the man do who succeeds the king?—Only what he has already done.
13. Then I saw that wisdom excels follyAs light excels darkness.
14. The wise man’s eyes are in his head,But the fool walks in darkness.Yet I myself perceivedThat the same event happens to them all.
15. So I said in my heart,“As it happens to the fool,It also happens to me,And why was I then more wise?”Then I said in my heart,“This also is vanity.”
16. For there is no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.And how does a wise man die?As the fool!
17. Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.
18. Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me.