Ecclesiastes 2:12-23

New King James Version

The End of the Wise and the Fool

¹²Then I turned myself to consider wisdom ^(A)and madness and folly;
For what can the man do who succeeds the king?—
Only what he has already ^(B)done.
¹³Then I saw that wisdom ^(C)excels folly
As light excels darkness.
¹⁴^(D)The wise man’s eyes are in his head,
But the fool walks in darkness.
Yet I myself perceived
That ^(E)the same event happens to them all.

¹⁵So I said in my heart,
“As it happens to the fool,
It also happens to me,
And why was I then more wise?”
Then I said in my heart,
“This also is vanity.”
¹⁶For there is ^(F)no more remembrance of the wise than of the fool forever,
Since all that now is will be forgotten in the days to come.
And how does a wise man die?
As the fool!

¹⁷Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.

¹⁸Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because ^(G)I must leave it to the man who will come after me. ¹⁹And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰Therefore I turned my heart and despaired of all the labor in which I had toiled under the sun. ²¹For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill; yet he must leave his ^[a]heritage to a man who has not labored for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. ²²^(H)For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? ²³For all his days are ^(I)sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.