Ecclesiastes 2:1-11
Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
2 I said in my mind, Come now, I will prove you with mirth and test you with pleasure; so have a good time [enjoy pleasure]. But this also was vanity (emptiness, falsity, and futility)!(A)
2 I said of laughter, It is mad, and of pleasure, What does it accomplish?
3 I searched in my mind how to cheer my body with wine—yet at the same time having my mind hold its course and guide me with [human] wisdom—and how to lay hold of folly, till I might see what was good for the sons of men to do under heaven all the days of their lives.
4 I made great works; I built myself houses, I planted vineyards.
5 I made for myself gardens and orchards and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees.
6 I made for myself pools of water from which to water the forest and make the trees bud.
7 I bought menservants and maidservants and had servants born in my house. Also I had great possessions of herds and flocks, more than any who had been before me in Jerusalem.
8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and of the provinces. I got for myself men singers and women singers, and the delights of the sons of men—[a]concubines very many.(B)
9 So I became great and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me and stood by me.
10 And whatever my eyes desired I kept not from them; I withheld not my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor, and this was my portion and reward for all my toil.
11 Then I looked on all that my hands had done and the labor I had spent in doing it, and behold, all was vanity and a striving after the wind and a feeding on it, and there was no profit under the sun.(C)
Read full chapterFootnotes
- Ecclesiastes 2:8 Solomon’s reign began under most promising conditions: he “loved the Lord, walking in the statutes of David his father... All Israel... feared the king [Solomon], for they saw that the wisdom of God was in him, to do judgment” (I Kings 3:3, 28 kjv). But soon his own “wisdom” alone was guiding him. He openly affronted God by taking many wives, including even heathen women. They seduced him into tolerating and even practicing idolatry (I Kings 11:1ff.).
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