Good News Translation GNT
New International Version NIV
12 After all, a king can only do what previous kings have done. So I started thinking about what it meant to be wise or reckless or foolish.
12
Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done?
13 Oh, I know, "Wisdom is better than foolishness, just as light is better than darkness.
13
I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness.
14 The wise can see where they are going, and fools cannot." But I also know that the same fate is waiting for us all.
14
The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
15 I thought to myself, "What happens to fools is going to happen to me, too. So what have I gained from being so wise?" "Nothing," I answered, "not a thing."
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 No one remembers the wise, and no one remembers fools. In days to come, we will all be forgotten. We must all die - wise and foolish alike.
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 life came to mean nothing to me, because everything in it had brought me nothing but trouble. It had all been useless; I had been chasing the wind.
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.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.
Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.