Ecclesiastes 1 :: New International Version (NIV)

Everything Is Meaningless

Ecc 1:1

Ecc 1:1The words of the Teacher,[fn] son of David, king in Jerusalem:

Ecc 1:2

Ecc 1:2“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”

Ecc 1:3

Ecc 1:3What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun?

Ecc 1:4

Ecc 1:4Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.

Ecc 1:5

Ecc 1:5The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.

Ecc 1:6

Ecc 1:6The wind blows to the south and turns to the north; round and round it goes, ever returning on its course.

Ecc 1:7

Ecc 1:7All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full. To the place the streams come from, there they return again.

Ecc 1:8

Ecc 1:8All things are wearisome, more than one can say. The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing.

Ecc 1:9

Ecc 1:9What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Ecc 1:10

Ecc 1:10Is there anything of which one can say, “Look! This is something new”? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time.

Ecc 1:11

Ecc 1:11No one remembers the former generations, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them.

Wisdom Is Meaningless

Ecc 1:12

Ecc 1:12I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

Ecc 1:13

Ecc 1:13I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!

Ecc 1:14

Ecc 1:14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

Ecc 1:15

Ecc 1:15What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted.

Ecc 1:16

Ecc 1:16I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”

Ecc 1:17

Ecc 1:17Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.

Ecc 1:18

Ecc 1:18For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

See the NIV Preface (Especially for Parenthesis, Brackets, & Asterisks).

NIV Footnotes

(1:1)

Or the leader of the assembly; also in verses 2 and 12

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