Ecclesiastes 1
18 verses · 2 passages
WORD Study
Study Full Chapter
Chapter 1
Everything Is Futile
Passage 1:1-11
With Wisdom Comes Sorrow
Passage 1:12-18
Everything Is Futile
2“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
3What does a man gain from all his labor, at which he toils under the sun?
4Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
5The sun rises and the sun sets; it hurries back to where it rises.
6The wind blows southward, then turns northward; round and round it swirls, ever returning on its course.
7All the rivers flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full; to the place from which the streams come, there again they flow.
8All things are wearisome, more than one can describe; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear content with hearing.
9What has been will be again, and what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.
10Is there a case where one can say, “Look, this is new”? It has already existed in the ages before us.
11There is no remembrance of those who came before, and those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow after.
With Wisdom Comes Sorrow
15What is crooked cannot be straightened, and what is lacking cannot be counted.
16I said to myself, “Behold, I have grown and increased in wisdom beyond all those before me who were over Jerusalem, and my mind has observed a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.”
17So I set my mind to know wisdom and madness and folly; I learned that this, too, is a pursuit of the wind.
18For with much wisdom comes much sorrow, and as knowledge grows, grief increases.