1:1   When the son of David was king in Jerusalem, he was known to be very wise, and he said:

1:2   Nothing makes sense! Everything is nonsense. I have seen it all-- nothing makes sense!

1:3   What is there to show for all of our hard work here on this earth?

1:4   People come, and people go, but still the world never changes.

1:5   The sun comes up, the sun goes down; it hurries right back to where it started from.

1:6   The wind blows south, the wind blows north; round and round it blows over and over again.

1:7   All rivers empty into the sea, but it never spills over; one by one the rivers return to their source.

1:8   All 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.

1:9   Everything that happens has happened before; nothing is new, nothing under the sun.

1:10   Someone might say, "Here is something new!" But it happened before, long before we were born.

1:11   No one who lived in the past is remembered anymore, and everyone yet to be born will be forgotten too.

1:12   I said these things when I lived in Jerusalem as king of Israel.

1:13   With 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.

1:14   I have seen it all, and everything is just as senseless as chasing the wind.

1:15   If something is crooked, it can't be made straight; if something isn't there, it can't be counted.

1:16   I 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."

1:17   Then 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.

1:18   The more you know, the more you hurt; the more you understand, the more you suffer.