11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had doneand what I had toiled to achieve,everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;nothing was gained under the sun.
12 Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom,and also madness and folly.What more can the king’s successor dothan what has already been done?
13 I saw that wisdom is better than folly,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 realisethat the same fate overtakes them both.
15 Then I said to myself,‘The fate of the fool will overtake me also.What then do I gain by being wise?’I said to myself,‘This too is meaningless.’
16 For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered;the days have already come when both have been forgotten.Like the fool, the wise too must die!
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.