VerseAI

NIV

Ecclesiastes 1

  1. 1<pb/>The words of the Teacher,<f>[1]</f> son of David, king in Jerusalem:
  2. 2<pb/><t>“Meaningless! Meaningless!”</t> <t>says the Teacher.</t> <t>“Utterly meaningless!</t> <t>Everything is meaningless.” <pb/></t>
  3. 3<t>What do people gain from all their labors</t> <t>at which they toil under the sun?</t>
  4. 4<t>Generations come and generations go,</t> <t>but the earth remains forever.</t>
  5. 5<t>The sun rises and the sun sets,</t> <t>and hurries back to where it rises.</t>
  6. 6<t>The wind blows to the south</t> <t>and turns to the north;</t> <t>round and round it goes,</t> <t>ever returning on its course.</t>
  7. 7<t>All streams flow into the sea,</t> <t>yet the sea is never full.</t> <t>To the place the streams come from,</t> <t>there they return again.</t>
  8. 8<t>All things are wearisome,</t> <t>more than one can say.</t> <t>The eye never has enough of seeing,</t> <t>nor the ear its fill of hearing.</t>
  9. 9<t>What has been will be again,</t> <t>what has been done will be done again;</t> <t>there is nothing new under the sun.</t>
  10. 10<t>Is there anything of which one can say,</t> <t>“Look! This is something new”?</t> <t>It was here already, long ago;</t> <t>it was here before our time.</t>
  11. 11<t>No one remembers the former generations,</t> <t>and even those yet to come</t> <t>will not be remembered</t> <t>by those who follow them.</t>
  12. 12<pb/>I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
  13. 13I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!
  14. 14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
  15. 15<pb/><t>What is crooked cannot be straightened;</t> <t>what is lacking cannot be counted.</t>
  16. 16<pb/>I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”
  17. 17Then 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.
  18. 18<pb/><t>For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;</t> <t>the more knowledge, the more grief.</t>