Ecclesiastes 2:12-17
New International Version
Wisdom and Folly Are Meaningless
12 Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,
and also madness and folly.(A)
What more can the king’s successor do
than what has already been done?(B)
13 I saw that wisdom(C) is better than folly,(D)
just as light is better than darkness.
14 The wise have eyes in their heads,
while the fool walks in the darkness;
but I came to realize
that the same fate overtakes them both.(E)
15 Then I said to myself,
“The fate of the fool will overtake me also.
What then do I gain by being wise?”(F)
I said to myself,
“This too is meaningless.”
16 For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;(G)
the days have already come when both have been forgotten.(H)
Like the fool, the wise too must die!(I)
Toil Is Meaningless
17 So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.(J)
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
NIV Reverse Interlinear Bible: English to Hebrew and English to Greek. Copyright © 2019 by Zondervan.
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