¹⁶ When I applied my heart to know wisdom, and to see the business that is done on the earth (for also there is that neither day nor night sees sleep with his eyes),

² It is vain for you to rise up early, To stay up late, Eating the bread of toil; For he gives sleep to his loved ones.

¹³ I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom concerning all that is done under the sky. It is a heavy burden that God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with.

²³ For all his days are sorrows, and his travail is grief; yes, even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.

⁴⁰ Thus I was; in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep fled from my eyes.

⁸ There is one who is alone, and he has neither son nor brother. There is no end to all of his labor, neither are his eyes satisfied with wealth. For whom then, do I labor, and deprive my soul of enjoyment? This also is vanity, yes, it is a miserable business.

¹² The sleep of a laboring man is sweet, whether he eats little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not allow him to sleep.

²⁵ I turned around, and my heart sought to know and to search out, and to seek wisdom and the scheme of things, and to know that wickedness is stupidity, and that foolishness is madness.

⁷ For he doesn't know that which will be; for who can tell him how it will be?

⁹ All this have I seen, and applied my mind to every work that is done under the sun. There is a time in which one man has power over another to his hurt.