9. So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me.
10. Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;And this was my reward from all my labor.
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.”