12 I continued on, so as to contemplate wisdom, as well as error and foolishness. "What is man," I said, "that he would be able to follow his Maker, the King?"
13 And I saw that wisdom surpasses foolishness, so much so that they differ as much as light from darkness.
14 The eyes of a wise man are in his head. A foolish man walks in darkness. Yet I learned that one would pass away like the other.
15 And I said in my heart: "If the death of both the foolish and myself will be one, how does it benefit me, if I have given myself more thoroughly to the work of wisdom?" And as I was speaking within my own mind, I perceived that this, too, is emptiness.
16 For there will not be a remembrance in perpetuity of the wise, nor of the foolish. And the future times will cover everything together, with oblivion. The learned die in a manner similar to the unlearned.
17 And, because of this, my life wearied me, since I saw that everything under the sun is evil, and everything is empty and an affliction of the spirit.
18 Again, I detested all my efforts, by which I had earnestly labored under the sun, to be taken up by an heir after me,