Ecclesiastes 2:10-17

10I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil.

11Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless 12Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?

13I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.

14The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.

15Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.”

16For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!

Toil Is Meaningless 17So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.