Ecclesiastes 2
He Tested Pleasure and Found It Futile Too
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I Will Test You with Gladness
2:1I said in my heart: Come now, I will test you with gladness; experience good. But look, this too was futility.
2:2Of laughter I said, Delirium! And to gladness, What are you doing?
2:3I examined in my heart how to draw my flesh toward wine—while my heart guided me with wisdom—and how to take hold of folly, until I might see what good human beings should do beneath the sun during the numbered days of their lives.
Great Works, Wealth, and Pleasure Tested
2:4I enlarged my work; I built houses for myself and planted vineyards for myself,
2:5I made gardens and parks for myself and planted in them every kind of fruit tree.
2:6I made pools of water for myself to irrigate from them a woodland sprouting trees.
2:7I acquired male and female slaves, and I had slaves born in my house. I also had a great possession of herds and flocks, beyond everyone who was before me in Jerusalem.
2:8I also gathered silver and gold for myself, and the riches of kings and regions. I provided male and female singers for myself, and human delights—a male cupbearer and female cupbearers.
2:9I grew great and surpassed everyone who was before me in Jerusalem; my wisdom also remained with me.
2:10Whatever my eyes asked for, I did not withhold from them. I did not keep my heart from any gladness, for my heart rejoiced in all my toil, and this was my portion from all my toil.
2:11Then I looked upon all my works that my hands had done and the toil with which I had labored to do them, and look, everything was futility and resolve of spirit, with no surplus beneath the sun.
The Wise and the Fool Share One Fate
2:12Then I looked to consider wisdom, delirium and folly. For who is the person who will come after the counsel—all the things with which he made it?
2:13I saw that wisdom has an advantage over folly, like the advantage light has over darkness.
2:14The wise person’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. Yet I too knew that one event will happen to them all.
2:15I said in my heart: The fool’s fate will happen to me too. Why have I been wise? Then I spoke excessively in my heart, because a fool speaks from excess, for this too is futility.
2:16For there is no enduring remembrance of the wise person along with the fool; in the coming days everything will already be forgotten. How will the wise person die along with the fool?
2:17I hated life, because the work done beneath the sun was grievous to me, for everything is futility and resolve of spirit.
Toil Left to the One Who Comes After
2:18I hated all my toil with which I toil beneath the sun, because I leave it to the person who comes after me.
2:19Who knows whether he will be wise or foolish? Yet he has authority over all the toil with which I labored and acted wisely beneath the sun. This too is futility.
2:20I turned to bid my heart farewell concerning all the toil with which I had labored beneath the sun,
2:21for a person may toil with wisdom, knowledge and courage, yet will give his portion to someone who did not toil for it. This too is futility and a great evil.
2:22For what comes to a person from all his toil and the resolve of his heart with which he toils beneath the sun?
2:23For all his days are pain, and his distraction is anger; even at night his heart does not sleep. This too is futility.
To Eat and Drink and See Good
2:24There is no good in a person. What he eats and drinks and lets his soul see as good in his toil—I saw that this too is from the hand of God.
2:25For who will eat, and who will abstain, apart from Him?
2:26For to the person who is good before Him He gives wisdom, knowledge and gladness; but to the sinner He gives the distraction of adding and gathering, to give to the one who is good before God. This too is futility and resolve of spirit.
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Saints Translation · Liturgical reading edition · V1 · working draft awaiting specialist review.