Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Complete Jewish Bible

² Pointless! Pointless! — says Kohelet —
Utterly meaningless! Nothing matters!
³ What does a person gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

⁴ Generations come, generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises, the sun sets;
then it speeds to its place and rises there.
⁶ The wind blows south,
then it turns north;
the wind blows all around
and keeps returning to its rounds.
⁷ All the rivers flow to the sea,
yet the sea is not full;
to the place where the rivers flow,
there they keep on flowing.

⁸ Everything is wearisome,
more than one can express;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
the ear not filled up with hearing.
⁹ What has been is what will be,
what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new
under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there something of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It existed already in the ages before us.
¹¹ No one remembers the people of long ago;
and those to come will not be remembered
by those who come after them.