Ecclesiastes

¹ These are the words of the Quester, David's son and king in Jerusalem:

² That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke.

³ a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?

⁴ but nothing changes—it's business as usual for old planet earth.

⁵ then does it again, and again—the same old round.

⁶ Around and around and around it blows, blowing this way, then that—the whirling, erratic wind.

⁷ but the sea never fills up. The rivers keep flowing to the same old place, and then start all over and do it again.

⁸ no one can find any meaning in it. Boring to the eye, boring to the ear.

⁹ what happened will happen again. There's nothing new on this earth. Year after year it's the same old thing.

¹⁰ Don't get excited—it's the same old story.

¹¹ And the things that will happen tomorrow? Nobody'll remember them either. Don't count on being remembered.

¹² Call me "the Quester." I've been king over Israel in Jerusalem.

¹³ I looked most carefully into everything, searched out all that is done on this earth. And let me tell you, there's not much to write home about. God hasn't made it easy for us.

¹⁴ I've seen it all and it's nothing but smoke—smoke, and spitting into the wind.

¹⁵ A minus that won't add up.

¹⁶ I said to myself, "I know more and I'm wiser than anyone before me in Jerusalem. I've stockpiled wisdom and knowledge."

¹⁷ What I've finally concluded is that so-called wisdom and knowledge are mindless and witless—nothing but spitting into the wind.

¹⁸ The more you know, the more you hurt.