9. So I was great, and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me.
10. Whatever my eyes desired, I didn’t keep from them. I didn’t withhold my heart from any joy, for my heart rejoiced because of all my labor, and this was my portion from all my labor.
11. Then I looked at all the works that my hands had worked, and at the labor that I had labored to do; and behold, all was vanity and a chasing after wind, and there was no profit under the sun.
12. I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king’s successor do? Just that which has been done long ago.
13. Then I saw that wisdom excels folly, as far as light excels darkness.
14. The wise man’s eyes are in his head, and the fool walks in darkness—and yet I perceived that one event happens to them all.
15. Then I said in my heart, “As it happens to the fool, so will it happen even to me; and why was I then more wise?” Then I said in my heart that this also is vanity.
16. For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no memory for ever, since in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. Indeed, the wise man must die just like the fool!
17. So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
18. I hated all my labor in which I labored under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who comes after me.
19. Who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all of my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity.
20. Therefore I began to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor in which I had labored under the sun.