1:1 The words of the Teacher, [Or leader of the assembly also in verses 2 and 12] son of David, king of Jerusalem:
1:2 Meaningless! Meaningless! says the Teacher. Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.
1:3 What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun?
1:4 Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains for ever.
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 There is no remembrance of men of old, and even those who are yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow.
1:12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
1:13 I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under heaven. What a heavy burden God has laid on men!
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 twisted cannot be straightened what is lacking cannot be counted.
1:16 I thought to myself, Look, I have grown and 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.