1Ecclesiastes · Contemporary English Version (2006)
1When the son of David was king in Jerusalem, he was known to be very wise, and he said:
2Nothing makes sense! Everything is nonsense. I have seen it all— nothing makes sense!Notes
3What is there to show for all of our hard work here on this earth?
4People come, and people go, but still the world never changes.
5The sun comes up, the sun goes down; it hurries right back to where it started from.
6The wind blows south, the wind blows north; round and round it blows over and over again.
7All rivers empty into the sea, but it never spills over; one by one the rivers return to their source.
8All of life is far more boring than words could ever say. Our eyes and our ears are never satisfied with what we see and hear.
9Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the sun.
10Someone might say, “Here is something new!” But it happened before, long before we were born.
11No one who lived in the past is remembered anymore, and everyone yet to be born will be forgotten too.
12I said these things when I lived in Jerusalem as king of Israel.
13With all my wisdom I tried to understand everything that happens here on earth. And God has made this so hard for us humans to do.
14I have seen it all, and everything is just as senseless as chasing the wind.
15If something is crooked, it can't be made straight; if something isn't there, it can't be counted.
16I said to myself, “You are by far the wisest person who has ever lived in Jerusalem. You are eager to learn, and you have learned a lot.”
17Then I decided to find out all I could about wisdom and foolishness. Soon I realized that this too was as senseless as chasing the wind.
18The more you know, the more you hurt; the more you understand, the more you suffer.
Contemporary English Version (2006) Tap a verse to copy, share, highlight or add a note. Dotted words link to encyclopedia articles.
18 verses in this chapter
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The text is Contemporary English Version (2006)(English) — Published under a copyright agreement with the Korean Bible Society — the text is copyright of the Korean Bible Society. Highlights, notes and read marks stay with the chapter whichever version you read. Dotted words are people, places and terms that have an encyclopedia article (marked once per page). Highlights, notes and read marks are saved only in this browser and gathered under My marks.