Ecclesiastes 2 I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with rejoicing. Consider goodness." This also is vanity.

VIN⁽ⁱ⁾ ¹ I said in my heart, "Come now, I will test you with rejoicing. Consider goodness." This also is vanity. ² Of laughing I said, It is foolish; and of joy--What use is it? ³ I also explored the effects of indulging my flesh with wine. My mind guiding me with wisdom, I investigated folly so that I might discover what is good under heaven for humans to do during the days of their lives. ⁴ I made me great works, I built me houses, and planted vineyards, ⁵ I made for myself gardens and parks, and I planted all sorts of fruit trees in them. ⁶ I made water pools from which to water the young trees. ⁷ I acquired male and female servants, and they gave birth to sons and daughters in my house. I had great wealth of herds and flocks, more than all who were in Jerusalem before me. ⁸ I also gathered silver and gold to myself, and the treasure of kings and of the provinces. I got men singers and women singers for myself, and the delights of the sons of men, a wife and very many wives. ⁹ And I became great and increased more than all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom stayed with me. ¹⁰ I neither withheld anything from my eyes that they desired, nor did I deprive any pleasure from my heart. My heart rejoiced in all my toil, for this was my reward from all my toil. ¹¹ Yet when I faced all my deeds that my hands had done, And the toil that I had toiled in doing them, Behold, the whole was vanity and a grazing on wind, And there was nothing of advantage under the sun." ¹² I turned myself to consider wisdom, madness, and folly: for what can the king's successor do? Just that which has been done long ago. ¹³ Then I saw that wisdom is better than foolish ways--as the light is better than the dark. ¹⁴ The wise man, his eyes are in his head; but the fool walketh in darkness. And I also perceived that one event happeneth to them all. ¹⁵ Then I said in my heart: "As it happens to the fool, so it will happen to me. Why have I been so wise?" Then I said in my heart: "This also is vanity." ¹⁶ For neither the wise nor the fool will be long remembered, since in days to come everything will be forgotten. The wise man dies the same way as the fool, does he not? ¹⁷ So I hated life, because the work that is worked under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a chasing after wind. ¹⁸ I hated all the work I had done under the sun, because I would leave it behind for the man who comes after me. ¹⁹ And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have rule over all my labor in which I have labored, and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity. ²⁰ So I began to despair of all the toil with which I toiled under the sun. ²¹ For although a person may toil with great wisdom and skill, he must leave his reward to someone who has not toiled for it. This also is vanity and a great calamity. ²² For what does a man have of all his labor and of the striving of his heart, in which he labors under the sun? ²³ All his days are sorrow, and his work is full of grief. Even in the night his heart has no rest. This again is vanity. ²⁴ There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink, and delight in his work. This also I saw was from the hand of God. ²⁵ For who will eat, or who will enjoy, if not I? ²⁶ For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who pleases God. This also is vanity and a chasing after wind.